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Le^SeJle  Cork  ell  Pi  eke  ft 


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LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES 
OF  DIXIE 


LITERARY 

HEARTHSTONES 

OF  DIXIE 

By 
LA  SALLE  CORBELL  PICKETT 

AUTHOR    OF    "  PTCKETT    AND    HIS    MEN,"    "jINNT,"    ETC. 


With  Portraits  and  Illustrations 


PHILADELPHIA  y  LONDON 
J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT    COMPANY 

1912 


COPYRIGHT,   igil,  BT  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,   1912,  BY  3.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 


PUBLISHED   SEPTEMBER,    1913 


PRINTED   BY  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

AT  THE  WASHINGTON  BQt'AHK  PRFSH 

I  MII.ADELPHIA,  O.  B.  A. 


FOREWORD. 

The  fires  still  glow  upon  the  hearth 
stones  to  which  our  southern  writers  in  the 
olden  days  gave  us  friendly  welcome.  They 
are  as  bright  to-day  as  when,  "  four  feet 
on  the  fender,"  we  talked  with  some  gifted 
friend  whose  pen,  dipped  in  the  heart's 
blood  of  life,  gave  word  to  thoughts  which 
had  flamed  within  us  and  sought  vainly  to 
escape  the  walls  of  our  being  that  they 
might  go  out  to  the  world  and  fulfil  their 
mission.  They  who  built  the  shrines  be 
fore  which  we  offer  our  devotion  have 
passed  from  the  world  of  men,  but  the  fires 
they  kindled  yet  burn  with  fadeless  light. 

To  us  who  have  dwelt  in  the  same  envi 
ronment  and  found  beauty  in  the  same 
scenes  that  inspired  them  to  eloquent  ex 
pression  of  the  thoughts,  the  loves,  the 


255411 


FOREWORD 


hopes,  and  the  aspirations  which  were  our 
own  as  well  as  theirs,  these  writers  of  our 
South  are  living  still  and  will  live  through 
the  long  procession  of  the  years.  In  the 
garden  of  our  lives  they  planted  the  flowers 
of  poesy,  of  fable,  and  of  romance.  With 
the  changes  of  the  years  those  flowers  may 
have  passed  into  the  realm  of  the  old-fash 
ioned,  like  the  blossoms  in  Grandmother's 
garden,  but  are  there  any  sweeter  or  more 
royally  blooming  than  these? 

The  lustre  of  our  gifted  ones  is  not 
dimmed  by  the  passage  of  time,  but  in  the 
rush  of  new  books  upon  the  world  the 
readers  of  to-day  lose  sight  of  the  volumes 
which  wove  threads  of  gold  into  the  joys 
and  sorrows  of  the  generation  now  trav 
elling  the  downward  slope  of  life.  Their 
starry  radiance  is  sometimes  lost  to  view  in 
the  electric  flash  of  the  present  day.  If 
these  pages  can  in  any  slight  way  aid  in 
2 


FOREWORD 


keeping  their  memory  bright  they  will  have 
reached  their  highest  aim. 

The  poets  of  Dixie  in  war  days  tended 
the  flames  that  glowed  upon  the  altar  of 
patriotism.  Their  lives  were  given  to  their 
country  as  truly  as  if  their  blood  had  crim 
soned  the  sod  of  hard-fought  fields.  They 
gave  of  their  best  to  our  cause.  Their 
bugle  notes  echo  through  the  years,  and 
the  mournful  tones  of  the  dirges  they  sang 
over  the  grave  of  our  dreams  yet  thrill  our 
hearts.  Before  our  eyes  "  The  Conquered 
Banner  "  sorrowfully  droops  on  its  staff 
and  "  The  Sword  of  Lee  "  flashes  in  the 
lines  of  our  Poet-Priest. 

For  the  quotations  with  which  are  illus 
trated  the  varying  phases  of  his  poetic 
thought  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of 
the  publishers  of  Father  Ryan's  poems, 
Messrs.  P.  J.  Kenedy  &  Sons.  For  cer 
tain  selections  from  the  poems  of  Hayne  I 
3 


FOREWORD 


am  indebted  to  the  Lothrop,  Lee  &  Shep- 
hard  Company,  and  for  selections  from  Dr. 
Bagley's  "The  Old  Fashioned  Gentle 
man,"  Messrs.  Charles  Schribner's  Sons. 

My  thanks  are  due  the  Houghton,  Mifflin 
Company  for  permission  to  include  in  my 
paper  on  Margaret  Junkin  Preston  two 
poems  and  other  quotations  from  the  "  Life 
and  Letters  of  Margaret  J.  Preston,"  by 
Mrs.  Allan,  the  step-daughter  of  Mrs. 
Preston. 

The  selections  in  the  article  on  Georgia's 
doubly  gifted  son,  Sidney  Lanier,  poet  and 
musician,  are  given  through  the  kind  per 
mission  of  Professor  Edwin  Minis  and  of 
Doubleday,  Page  &  Company,  publishers 
of  Mrs.  Clay's  "  A  Belle  of  the  Fifties." 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

'THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT " 11 

Edgar  Allan  Poe 

"  THE  SUNRISE  POET  " 41 

Sidney  Lanier 

'  THE  POET  OP  THE  PINES  " 69 

Paul  Hamilton  Hayne 

'"  THE  FLAME-BORN  POET  " 99 

Henry  Timrod 

"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 125 

William  Gilmore  Simms 

"  UNCLE  REMUS  " 151 

Joel  Chandler  Harris 

"  THE  POET  OF  THE  FLAG  " 175 

Francis  Scott  Key 

"THE  POET-PRIEST " 201 

Father  Ryan 

"  BACON  AND  GREENS  " 225 

Dr.  George  William  Bagby 

"  WOMAN  AND  POET  " 253 

Margaret  Junkin  Preston 

" THE  ' MOTHER '  OF  ' ST.  ELMO '" 283 

Augusta  Evans  Wilson 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FAQE 

THE  HOME  OF  AUGUSTA  EVANS  WILSON,  ASHLAND  PLACE 

Frontispiece 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 20 

SIDNEY  LANIER 58 

HOUSE  WHERE  TIMROD  LIVED  DURING  His  LAST  YEARS.  .   116 

^*m    - — 

WOODLANDS,  THE  HOME  OF  WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS (126 

«*— — - 

JOEL  CHANDLER  HARRIS 156 

SNAP-BEAN  FARM,  ATLANTA,  GEORGIA 166 

FRANCIS  SCOTT  KEY 194 

FATHER  RYAN 204 

ST.  MARY'S  CHURCH,  MOBILE.     FATHER  RYAN'S  LATE 
RESIDENCE  ADJOINING 216 

DR.  GEORGE  W.  BAGBY 236 

"  AVENEL" . .  .  240 


THE  POET  OE  THE  NIGHT 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES 
OF  DIXIE 


'  THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT  ' 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE 

"  I  am  a  Virginian;  at  least,  I  call  myself 
one,  for  I  have  resided  all  my  life  until 
within  the  last  few  years  in  Richmond." 

Thus  Edgar  A.  Poe  wrote  to  a  friend. 
The  fact  of  his  birth  in  Boston  he  regarded 
as  merely  an  unfortunate  accident,  or  per 
haps  the  work  of  that  malevolent  "  Imp  of 
the  Perverse  "  which  apparently  dominated 
his  life.  That  it  constituted  any  tie  be 
tween  him  and  the  "  Hub  of  the  Universe," 
unless  it  might  be  the  inverted  tie  of  opposi 
tion,  he  never  admitted.  The  love  which 

his  charming  little  actress  mother  cherished 
11 


UT;.:{.\KY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXII 

for  the  city  in  which  she  had  enjoyed  her 
greatest  triumphs  seemed  to  have  turned  to 
hatred  in  the  heart  of  her  brilliant  and 
erratic  son.  In  his  short  and  disastrous 
sojourn  in  Boston,  when  his  fortunes  were 
at  their  lowest  ebb,  it  is  not  likely  that  his 
thought  once  turned  to  the  old  house  on 
Haskins,  now  Carver,  Street,  where  his  ill- 
starred  life  began. 

The  reason  given  by  Poe,  "  I  have  re 
sided  there  all  my  life  until  within  the  last 
few  years,"  suggests  but  slight  cause  for 
his  love  of  Richmond,  the  home  of  his  child 
hood,  the  darkening  clouds  of  which, 
viewed  through  the  softening  lens  of  years, 
may  have  shaded  off  to  brighter  tints,  as 
the  roughness  of  a  landscape  disappears 
and  melts  into  mystic,  dreamy  beauty  as  we 
journey  far  from  the  scene. 

The  three  women  who  had  been  the  stars 
in  the  troubled  sky  of  his  youth  irradiated 

19 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT' 

his  memory  of  the  Queen  City  of  the  South. 
In  the  churchyard  of  historic  old  Saint 
John's,  that  once  echoed  to  the  words  of 
Patrick  Henry,  "  Give  me  liberty  or  give 
me  death!"  Foe's  mother  lay  in  an  un 
identified  grave.  In  Hollywood  slept  his 
second  mother,  who  had  surrounded  his 
boyhood  with  the  maternal  affection  that, 
like  an  unopened  rose  in  her  heart,  had 
awaited  the  coming  of  the  little  child  who 
was  to  be  the  sunbeam  to  develop  it  into 
perfect  flowering.  On  Shockoe  Hill  was 
the  tomb  of  "  Helen,"  his  chum's  mother, 
whose  beauty  of  face  and  heart  brought 
the  boyish  soul 

To  the  Glory  that  was  Greece 

And  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome. 

Through  the  three-fold  sanctification  of  the 
twin  priestesses,  Love  and  Sorrow,  Rich 
mond  was  his  home. 

13 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT' 

mess,  the  fact  that  he  did  so  does  not  argue 
that  Mr.  Allan  was  "  down  on  his  luck," 
but  neither  does  it  presuppose  that  he  was 
the  possessor  of  wealth.  But  it  was  a 
home  in  the  truest  sense  for  little  Edgar, 
for  it  was  radiant  with  the  love  of  the  ten 
der-hearted  woman  who  had  brought  him 
within  its  friendly  walls. 

From  this  home  Mr.  Allan  went  to  Lon 
don  to  establish  a  branch  of  the  Company 
business.  He  was  accompanied  by  Mrs. 
Allan  and  Edgar,  and  the  boy  was  placed 
in  the  school  of  Stoke-Newington,  shadowy 
with  the  dim  procession  of  the  ages  and 
gloomed  over  by  the  memory  of  Eugene 
Aram.  The  pictured  face  of  the  head  of 
the  Manor  School,  Dr.  Bransby,  indicates 
that  the  hapless  boys  under  his  care  had 
stronger  than  historic  reasons  for  depres 
sion  in  that  ancient  institution. 

England  was  thrilling  with  the  triumph 

15 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

of  Waterloo,  and  even  Stoke-Newington 
must  have  awakened  to  the  pulsing  of  the 
atmosphere.  Not  far  away  were  Byron, 
Shelley,  and  Keats,  at  the  beginning  of 
their  brief  and  brilliant  careers,  the  glory 
and  the  tragedy  of  which  may  have  thrown 
a  prophetic  shadow  over  the  American  boy 
who  was  to  travel  a  yet  darker  path  than 
any  of  these. 

Under  the  elms  that  bordered  the  old 
Roman  road,  what  forms  of  antique  ro 
mance  would  lie  in  wait  for  the  dreamy 
lad,  joining  him  in  his  Saturday  afternoon 
walks  and  telling  him  stories  of  their  youth 
in  the  ancient  days  to  mingle  with  the 
age-yourth  in  the  heart  of  the  dual- 
souled  boy.  The  green  lanes  were  haunted 
by  memories  of  broken-hearted  lovers: 
Earl  Percy,  mourning  for  the  fair  and 
fickle  Anne;  Essex,  calling  vainly  for  the 
royal  ring  that  was  to  have  saved  him; 

18 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT" 

Leicester,  the  Lucky,  a  more  contented 
ghost,  returning  in  pleasing  reminiscence 
to  the  scenes  of  his  earthly  triumphs,  com 
fortably  oblivious  of  his  earthly  crimes. 
What  boy  would  not  have  found  inspira 
tion  in  gazing  at  the  massive  walls,  locked 
and  barred  against  him  though  they  were, 
within  which  the  immortal  Robinson 
Crusoe  sprang  into  being  and  found  that 
island  of  enchantment,  the  favorite  resort 
of  the  juvenile  imagination  in  all  the  gen 
erations  since? 

At  Stoke-Newington  the  introspective 
boy  found  little  to  win  him  from  that  self- 
analysis  which  later  enabled  him  to  mystify 
a  world  that  rarely  pauses  to  take  heed  of 
the  ancient  exhortation,  "  Know  thyself." 
In  the  depths  of  his  own  being  he  found 
the  story  of  "  William  Wilson,"  with  its 
atmosphere  of  weird  romance  and  its  heart 
of  solemn  truth. 

17 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

Incidentally,  he  uplifted  the  reputation 
of  the  American  boy,  so  far  as  regarded 
Stoke-Newington's  opinion,  by  assuring 
his  mates  when  they  marvelled  over  his 
athletic  triumphs  and  feats  of  skill  that  all 
the  boys  in  America  could  do  those  things. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  in  which  the  fam 
ily  returned  from  Stoke-Newington  Mr. 
Allan  moved  into  a  plain  little  cottage  a 
story  and  a  half  high,  with  five  rooms  on 
the  ground  floor,  at  the  corner  of  Clay  and 
Fifth  Streets.  Here  they  lived  until,  in 
1825,  Mr.  Allan  inherited  a  considerable 
amount  of  money  and  bought  a  handsome 
brick  residence  at  the  corner  of  Main  and 
Fifth  Streets,  since  known  as  the  Allan 
House.  With  the  exception  of  two  very 
short  intervals,  from  June  of  this  year  until 
the  following  February  was  all  the  time 
that  Poe  spent  in  the  Allan  mansion. 

The  Allan  House,  in  its  palmy  days, 

18 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT  ' 

might  appeal  irresistibly  to  the  mind  of  a 
poet,  attuned  to  the  harmonies  of  artistic 
design  and  responsive  to  the  beauties  of 
romantic  environment.  It  was  a  two-story 
building  with  spacious  rooms  and  appoint 
ments  that  suggested  the  taste  of  the  cul 
tivated  mistress  of  the  stately  dwelling. 
On  the  second  floor  was  "  Eddie's  room," 
as  she  lovingly  called  it,  wherein  her 
affectionate  imagination  as  well  as  her  skill 
expended  themselves  lavishly  for  the  pleas 
ure  of  the  son  of  her  heart. 

A  few  years  later,  upon  his  sudden  re 
turn  after  a  long  absence,  it  was  his  im 
petuous  inquiry  of  the  second  Mrs.  Allan 
as  to  the  dismantling  of  this  room  that  led 
to  his  hasty  retreat  from  the  house,  an 
incident  upon  which  his  early  biographers, 
led  by  Dr.  Griswold,  based  the  fiction  that 
Mr.  Allan  cherished  Poe  affectionately  in 
his  home  until  his  conduct  toward  "  the 

19 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

young  and  beautiful  wife  "  forced  the  ex 
pulsion  of  the  poet  from  the  Allan  house. 
The  fact  is  that  Poe  saw  the  second  Mrs. 
Allan  only  once,  for  a  moment  marked 
by  fiery  indignation  on  his  part,  and  on 
hers  by  a  cold  resentment  from  which  the 
unfortunate  visitor  fled  as  from  a  north 
wind ;  the  second  Mrs.  Allan's  strong  point 
being  a  grim  and  middle-aged  determina 
tion,  rather  than  "  youth  and  beauty."  Not 
that  the  thirty  calendar  years  of  that  lady 
would  necessarily  have  conducted  her 
across  the  indefinite  boundaries  of  the  un 
certain  region  known  as  "  middle  age,"  but 
the  second  Mrs.  Allan  was  born  middle- 
aged,  and  the  almanac  had  nothing  to  do 
with  it. 

It  was  in  the  sunshine  of  youth  and 
the  warmth  of  love  and  the  fragrance  of 
newly  opening  flowers  of  poetry  that 
Edgar  Poe  lived  in  the  new  Allan  home 

20 


EDGAR    ALLAN    POE 

From  the  daguerreotype  formerly  owned  by 
Edmund  Clarence  Stedman 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT" 

and  from  the  balcony  of  the  second  story 
looked  out  upon  the  varied  scenes  of  the 
river  studded  with  green  islets,  the  village 
beyond  the  water,  and  far  away  the  verdant 
slopes  and  forested  hills  into  the  depths 
of  which  he  looked  with  rapt  eyes,  seeing 
visions  which  that  forest  never  held  for  any 
other  gaze.  Mayhap,  adown  those  dim 
green  aisles  he  previsioned  the  "  ghoul- 
haunted  woodland  of  Weir  "  with  the  tomb 
of  Ulalume  at  the  end  of  the  ghostly  path 
through  the  forest — the  road  through  life 
that  led  to  the  grave  where  his  heart  lay 
buried.  Through  the  telescope  on  that 
balcony  he  may  first  have  followed  the 
wanderings  of  Al  Araaf,  the  star  that 
shone  for  him  alone.  In  the  dim  paths  of 
the  moonlit  garden  flitted  before  his  eyes 
the  dreamful  forms  that  were  afterward 
prisoned  in  the  golden  net  of  his  wondrous 

poesy. 

21 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

To  these  poetic  scenes  he  soon  bade  fare 
well,  and  on  St.  Valentine's  day,  1826, 
entered  the  University  of  Virginia,  where 
Number  13,  West  Range,  is  still  pointed 
out  as  the  old-time  abiding  place  of  Vir 
ginia's  greatest  poet,  whose  genius  has 
given  rise  to  more  acrimonious  discussion 
than  has  ever  gathered  about  the  name  of 
any  other  American  man  of  letters.  The 
real  home  of  Poe  at  this  time  was  the  range 
of  hills  known  as  the  Ragged  Mountains, 
for  it  was  among  their  peaks  and  glens  and 
caverns  and  wooded  paths  and  rippling 
streams  that  he  roamed  in  search  of  strange 
tales  and  mystic  poems  that  would  dazzle 
his  readers  in  after  days.  His  rambles 
among  the  hills  of  the  University  town 
soon  came  to  a  close.  Mr.  Allan,  being 
confronted  by  a  gaming  debt  which  he  re 
garded  as  too  large  to  fit  the  sporting 

necessities  of  a  boy  of  seventeen,  took  him 

M 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT  " 

from  college  and  put  him  into  the  counting- 
room  of  Ellis  &  Allan,  a  position  far  from 
agreeable  to  one  accustomed  to  counting 
only  poetic  feet. 

The  inevitable  rupture  soon  came,  and 
Poe  went  to  Boston,  the  city  of  his  physical 
birth  and  destined  to  become  the  place  of 
his  birth  into  the  tempestuous  world  of 
authorship.  Forty  copies  of  "  Tamerlane 
and  Other  Poems "  appeared  upon  the 
shelf  of  the  printer — and  nowhere  else.  It 
is  said  that  seventy-three  years  later  a 
single  copy  was  sold  for  $2,250.  Had  this 
harvest  been  reaped  by  the  author  in  those 
early  days,  who  can  estimate  the  gain  to 
the  field  of  literature? 

Boston  proving  inhospitable  to  the  first 
ling  of  her  gifted  son's  imagination,  the 
Common  soon  missed  the  solitary,  melan 
choly  figure  that  had  for  months  haunted 
the  old  historic  walks.  Edgar  A.  Poe 

23 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

dropped  out  of  the  world,  or  perhaps  out 
of  the  delusion  of  fancying  himself  in  the 
world,  and  Edgar  A.  "  Perry  "  appeared, 
an  enlisted  soldier  in  the  First  Artillery  at 
Fort  Independence.  For  two  years 
"  Perry  "  served  his  country  in  the  sun 
light,  and  Poe,  under  night's  starry  cover, 
roamed  through  skyey  aisles  in  the  service 
of  the  Muse  and  explored  "  Al  Araaf," 
the  abode  of  those  volcanic  souls  that  rush 
in  fatal  haste  to  an  earthly  heaven,  for 
which  they  recklessly  exchange  the  heaven 
of  the  spirit  that  might  have  achieved 
immortality. 

A  severe  illness  resulted  in  the  disclosure 
of  the  identity  of  the  young  soldier,  and  a 
message  was  sent  to  Mr.  Allan,  who  ef 
fected  his  discharge  and  helped  secure  for 
him  an  appointment  to  West  Point.  On 
his  way  to  the  Academy  he  stopped  in 
Baltimore  and  arranged  for  the  publica- 

24 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT  " 

tion  of  a  new  volume,  to  contain  "  Al 
Araaf,"  a  revised  version  of  "  Tamerlane," 
and  some  short  poems. 

Some  months  later  No.  28  South  Bar 
racks,  West  Point,  was  the  despair  of  the 
worthy  inspector  who  spent  his  days  and 
nights  in  unsuccessful  efforts  to  keep 
order  among  the  embryo  protectors  of  his 
country.  Poe,  the  leader  of  the  quartette 
that  made  life  interesting  in  Number  28, 
was  destined  never  to  evolve  into  patriotic 
completion.  He  soon  reached  the  limit  of 
the  endurance  of  the  officials,  that  being,  in 
the  absence  of  a  pliant  guardian,  the  only 
method  by  which  a  cadet  could  be  freed 
from  the  walls  of  the  Academy. 

Soon  after  leaving  the  military  school 
Poe  made  a  brief  visit  to  Richmond,  the 
final  break  with  Mr.  Allan  took  place,  and 
the  poet  went  to  Baltimore. 

Number  9  Front  Street,  Baltimore,  is 

25 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

claimed  as  the  birthplace  of  Poe.  There 
is  a  house  in  Norfolk  that  is  likewise  so  dis 
tinguished.  There  are  other  places,  misty 
with  passing  generations,  similarly  known 
to  history.  Poe,  though  not  Homeric  in 
his  literary  methods,  had  much  the  same 
post-mortem  experience  as  the  Father  of 
the  Epicists. 

At  the  time  of  the  Poet-wanderer's  re 
turn  to  Baltimore  his  aunt,  Mrs.  Clemm, 
had  her  humble  but  neat  and  comfortable 
home  on  Eastern  Avenue,  then  Wilks 
Street,  and  here  he  found  the  first  home  he 
had  known  since  his  childhood  and,  inci 
dentally,  his  charming  child  cousin,  Vir 
ginia,  who  was  to  make  his  home  bright 
with  her  devotion  through  the  remainder  of 
her  brief  life. 

In  these  early  days  no  thought  of  any 
but  a  cousinly  affection  had  rippled  the 
smooth  surface  of  Virginia's  childish  mind, 

26 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT  " 

and  she  was  the  willing  messenger  between 
Poe  and  his  "  Mary,"  who  lived  but  a  short 
distance  from  the  home  of  the  Clemms, 
and  who,  when  the  frosts  of  years  had  de 
scended  upon  her,  denied  having  been 
engaged  to  him  —  apparently  because 
her  elders  were  more  discreet  than  she 
was — but  admitted  that  she  cried  when  she 
heard  of  his  death. 

In  his  attic  room  on  Wilks  Street  he 
toiled  over  the  poems  and  tales  that  some 
time  would  bring  him  fame. 

Poe  was  living  in  Amity  Street  when 
he  won  the  hundred-dollar  prize  offered  by 
the  Saturday  Visitor,  with  his  "  Manu 
script  Found  in  a  Bottle,"  and  wrote  his 
poem  of  "  The  Coliseum,"  which  failed  of  a 
prize  merely  because  the  plan  did  not  admit 
of  making  two  awards  to  the  same  person. 
A  better  reward  for  his  work  was  an  en 
gagement  as  assistant  editor  of  the  South- 

27 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

ern  Literary  Messenger,  which  led  to  his 
removal  to  Richmond. 

The  Messenger  was  in  a  building  at  Fif 
teenth  and  Main  Streets,  in  the  second 
story  of  which  Mr.  White,  the  editor,  and 
Poe,  had  their  offices.  The  young  assistant 
soon  became  sole  editor  of  the  publication, 
and  it  was  in  this  capacity  that  he  entered 
upon  the  critical  work  which  was  destined 
to  bring  him  effective  enemies  to  assail  his 
reputation,  both  literary  and  personal, 
when  the  grave  had  intervened  to  prevent 
any  response  to  their  slanders.  Not  but 
that  he  praised  oftener  than  he  censured, 
but  the  thorn  of  censure  pricks  deeply,  and 
the  rose  of  praise  but  gently  diffuses  its 
fragrance  to  be  wafted  away  on  the  pass 
ing  breeze.  The  sharp  satire  attracted  at 
tention  to  the  Messenger,  as  attested  by  the 
rapid  growth  of  the  subscription  list. 

Here  Poe  was  surrounded  by  memories 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT" 

of  his  childhood.  The  building  was  next 
door  to  that  in  which  Ellis  &  Allan  had 
their  tobacco  store  in  Poe's  school  days  in 
Richmond.  The  old  Broad  Street  Theatre, 
on  the  site  of  which  now  stands  Monumen 
tal  Church,  was  the  scene  of  his  beautiful 
mother's  last  appearance  before  the  public. 
Near  Nineteenth  and  Main  she  died  in  a 
damp  cellar  in  the  "  Bird  in  Hand  "  dis 
trict,  through  which  ran  Shockoe  Creek. 
Eighteen  days  later  the  old  theatre  was 
burned,  and  all  Richmond  was  in  mourning 
for  the  dead. 

At  the  northwest  corner  of  Fifth  and 
Main  Streets,  opposite  the  Allan  mansion, 
was  the  MacKenzie  school  for  girls,  which 
Rosalie  Poe  attended  in  Edgar's  school 
days.  He  was  the  only  young  man  who 
enjoyed  the  much-desired  privilege  of  be 
ing  received  in  that  hall  of  learning,  and 
some  of  the  bright  girls  of  the  institution 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

beguiled  him  into  revealing  the  authorship 
of  the  satiric  verses,  "  Don  Pompioso," 
which  caused  their  victim,  a  wealthy  and 
popular  young  gentleman  of  Richmond,  to 
quit  the  city  with  undue  haste.  The  verses 
were  the  boy's  revenge  upon  "  Don  Pom 
pioso  "  for  insulting  remarks  about  the 
position  of  Poe  as  the  son  of  stage  people. 

On  Franklin  Street,  between  First  and 
Second,  was  the  Ellis  home,  where  Poe, 
with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Allan,  lived  for  a  time 
after  their  return  from  England.  On 
North  Fifth  Street,  near  Clay,  still  stood 
the  cottage  that  was  the  next  home  of  the 
Allans.  At  the  southeast  corner  of 
Eleventh  and  Broad  Streets  was  the  school 
which  Poe  had  attended,  afterward  the 
site  of  the  Powhatan  Hotel.  Near  it  was 
the  home  of  Mrs.  Stanard,  whose  memory 
comes  radiantly  down  to  us  in  the  lines 
"  To  Helen." 

30 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT ' 

Ever  since  the  tragedy  of  the  Helles 
pont,  it  has  been  the  ambition  of  poets  to 
perform  a  noteworthy  swimming  feat,  and 
one  of  Poe's  schoolboy  memories  was  of  his 
six-mile  swim  from  Ludlam's  Wharf  to 
Warwick  Bar. 

On  May  16,  1836,  in  Mrs.  Yarrington's 
boarding-house,  at  the  corner  of  Twelfth 
and  Bank  Streets,  Poe  and  Virginia 
Clemm  were  married.  The  house  was 
burned  in  the  fire  of  1865. 

In  January,  1837,  Poe  left  the  Mes 
senger  and  went  north,  after  which  most 
of  his  work  was  done  in  New  York  and 
Philadelphia.  "  The  Fall  of  the  House  of 
Usher "  was  written  when  he  lived  on 
Sixth  Avenue,  near  Waverley  Place,  and 
"  The  Raven  "  perched  above  his  chamber 
door  in  a  house  on  the  Bloomingdale  Road, 
now  Eighty-Fourth  Street. 

31 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

When  living  in  Philadelphia  Poe  went 
to  Washington  for  the  double  purpose  of 
securing  subscribers  for  his  projected 
magazine,  and  of  gaining  a  government  ap 
pointment.  The  house  in  which  he  stayed 
during  his  short  and  ill-starred  sojourn 
in  the  Capital  is  on  New  York  Avenue, 
on  a  terrace  with  steps  to  a  landing  whence 
a  longer  flight  leads  to  a  side  entrance 
lost  in  a  greenery  of  dark  and  heavy  bushes. 
On  the  opposite  side  is  a  small,  square 
veranda.  The  building,  which  is  two  stories 
and  a  half  high,  was  apparently  a  cheerful 
yellow  color  in  the  beginning,  but  it  has 
become  dingy  with  time  and  weather.  The 
scars  of  its  long  battle  with  fate  give  it 
the  appearance  of  being  about  to  crumble 
and  crash,  after  the  fashion  of  the  "  House 
of  Usher."  It  has  windows  with  gloomy 
casements,  opening  even  with  the  ground 
in  the  first  story,  and  in  the  second  upon  a 

39 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT" 

narrow  balcony.  A  sign  on  the  front  of  the 
building  invites  attention  to  a  popular 
make  of  glue.* 

In  1849,  about  two  years  after  the  pass 
ing  of  the  gentle  soul  of  Virginia,  Poe  re 
turned  to  Richmond.  He  went  first  to  the 
United  States  Hotel,  at  the  southwest  cor 
ner  of  Nineteenth  and  Main  Streets,  in 
the  "  Bird  in  Hand  "  neighborhood  where 
he  had  looked  for  the  last  time  on  the  face 
of  his  young  mother.  He  soon  removed 
to  the  "  Swan,"  because  it  was  near  Dun 
can  Lodge,  the  home  of  his  friends,  the 
MacKenzies,  where  his  sister  Rose  had 
found  protection.  The  Swan  was  a  long, 
two-storied  structure  with  combed  roof, 
tall  chimneys  at  the  ends,  and  a  front  piazza 
with  a  long  flight  of  steps  leading  down 
to  the  street.  It  was  famous  away  back  in 
the  beginning  of  the  century,  having  been 

*  Since  this  was  written  the  old  house  has  been  torn  down. 
33 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

built  about  1795.  When  it  sheltered  Poe 
it  wore  a  look  of  having  stood  there  from 
the  beginning  of  time  and  been  forgotten 
by  the  passing  generations. 

Duncan  Lodge,  now  an  industrial  home, 
was  then  a  stately  mansion,  shaded  by 
magnificent  trees.  Here  Poe  spent  much 
of  his  time,  and  one  evening  in  this  friendly 
home  he  recited  "  The  Raven  "  with  such 
artistic  effect  that  his  auditors  induced  him 
to  give  it  as  a  public  reading  at  the  Ex 
change  Hotel.  Unfortunately,  it  was  in 
midsummer,  and  both  literary  Richmond 
and  gay  Richmond  were  at  seashore  and 
mountain,  and  there  were  few  to  listen  to 
the  poem  read  as  only  its  author  could  read 
it.  Later  in  the  same  hall  he  gave,  with 
gratifying  success,  his  lecture  on  "  The 
Poetic  Principle." 

In  early  September,  with  some  friends, 
he  spent  a  Sunday  in  the  Hygeia  Hotel  at 

34 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT' 

Old  Point.  At  the  request  of  one  of  the 
party  he  recited  "  The  Raven,"  "  Annabel 
Lee,"  and  "  Ulalume,"  saying  that  the 
last  stanza  of  "  Ulalume  "  might  not  be  in 
telligible  to  them,  as  it  was  not  to  him  and 
for  that  reason  had  not  been  published. 
Even  if  he  had  known  what  it  meant,  he 
objected  to  furnishing  it  with  a  note  of  ex 
planation,  quoting  Dr.  Johnson's  remark 
about  a  book,  that  it  was  "  as  obscure  as  an 
explanatory  note." 

Miss  Susan  Ingram,  an  old  friend  of 
Poe,  and  one  of  the  party  at  Old  Point, 
tells  of  a  visit  he  made  at  her  home  in  Nor 
folk  following  the  day  at  Point  Comfort. 
Noting  the  odor  of  orris  root,  he  said  that 
he  liked  it  because  it  recalled  to  him  his 
boyhood,  when  his  adopted  mother  kept 
orris  root  in  her  bureau  drawers,  and 
whenever  they  were  opened  the  fragrance 
would  fill  the  room. 

35 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

Near  old  St.  John's  in  Richmond  was  the 
home  of  Mrs.  Shelton,  who,  as  Elmira 
Royster,  was  the  youthful  sweetheart  from 
whom  Poe  took  a  tender  and  despairing 
farewell  when  he  entered  the  University  of 
Virginia.  Here  he  spent  many  pleasant 
evenings,  writing  to  Mrs.  Clemm  with 
enthusiasm  of  his  renewed  acquaintance 
with  his  former  lady-love. 

Next  to  the  last  evening  that  Poe  spent 
in  Richmond  he  called  on  Susan  Talley, 
afterward  Mrs.  Weiss,  with  whom  he  dis 
cussed  "  The  Raven,"  pointing  out  various 
defects  which  he  might  have  remedied  had 
he  supposed  that  the  world  would  capture 
that  midnight  bird  and  hang  it  up  in  the 
golden  cage  of  a  "  Collection  of  Best 
Poems."  He  was  haunted  by  the  "  ghost  " 
which  "  each  separate  dying  ember 
wrought  "  upon  the  floor,  and  had  never 
been  able  to  explain  satisfactorily  to  him- 

36 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  NIGHT" 

self  how  and  why  his  head  should  have 
been  "  reclining  on  the  cushion's  velvet  lin 
ing  "  when  the  topside  would  have  been 
more  convenient  for  any  purpose  except 
that  of  rhyme.  But  it  cannot  be  de 
manded  of  a  poet  that  he  should  explain 
himself  to  anybody,  least  of  all  to  himself. 
To  his  view,  the  shadow  of  the  raven  upon 
the  floor  was  the  most  glaring  of  its  im 
possibilities.  "  Not  if  you  suppose  a 
transom  with  the  light  shining  through 
from  an  outer  hall,"  replied  the  ingenious 
Susan. 

When  Poe  left  the  Talley  home  he  went 
to  Duncan  Lodge,  a  short  distance  away, 
and  spent  the  night.  The  next  night  he 
was  at  Sadler's  Old  Market  Hotel,  leaving 
early  in  the  morning  for  Philadelphia,  but 
stopping  in  Baltimore,  where  came  to  him 
the  tragic,  mysterious  end  of  all  things. 

37 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

Poe  knew  men  as  little  as  he  knew  any 
of  the  other  every-day  facts  of  life.  In  the 
depths  of  that  ignorance  he  left  his  reputa 
tion  in  the  hands  of  the  only  being  he  ever 
met  who  would  tear  it  to  shreds  and  throw 
it  into  the  mire. 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET 

SIDNEY  LANIER 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET' 

SIDNEY  LANIER 

In  my  memory-gallery  hangs  a  beautiful 
picture  of  the  Lanier  home  as  I  saw  it 
years  ago,  on  High  Street  in  Macon, 
Georgia,  upon  a  hillock  with  greensward 
sloping  down  on  all  sides.  It  is  a  wide, 
roomy  mansion,  with  hospitality  written 
all  over  its  broad  steps  that  lead  up  to  a 
wide  veranda  on  which  many  windows  look 
out  and  smile  upon  the  visitor  as  he  enters. 
One  tall  dormer  window,  overarched  with 
a  high  peak,  comes  out  to  the  very  edge  of 
the  roof  to  welcome  the  guest.  Two, 
smaller  and  more  retiring,  stand  upon  the 
verge  of  the  high-combed  house-roof  and 
look  down  in  friendly  greeting.  There  are 
tall  trees  in  the  yard,  bending  a  little  to 
touch  the  old  house  lovingly. 

41 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

Far  away  stretched  the  old  oaks  that 
girdled  Macon  with  greenery,  where  Sid 
ney  Lanier  and  his  brother  Clifford  used 
to  spend  their  schoolboy  Saturdays  among 
the  birds  and  rabbits.  Near  by  flows  the 
Ocmulgee,  where  the  boys,  inseparable  in 
sport  as  well  as  in  the  more  serious  aspects 
of  life,  were  wont  to  fish.  Here  Sidney 
cut  the  reed  with  which  he  took  his  first 
flute  lesson  from  the  birds  in  the  woods. 
Above  the  town  were  the  hills  for  which 
the  soul  of  the  poet  longed  in  after  life. 

Macon  was  the  "  live  "  city  of  middle 
Georgia.  She  made  no  effort  to  rival 
Richmond  or  Charleston  as  an  educational 
or  literary  centre,  but  she  had  an  admirable 
commercial  standing,  and  offered  a  gen 
erous  hospitality  that  kept  her  in  fond  re 
membrance.  In  the  Macon  post-office 
Sidney  Lanier  had  his  first  business  ex- 

42 


THE  SUNRISE  POET 


perience,  to  offset  the  drowsy  influence  of 
sleepy  Midway,  the  seat  of  Oglethorpe 
College,  where  he  continued  his  studies  af 
ter  completing  the  course  laid  out  in  the 
"  'Cademy  "  under  the  oaks  and  hickories 
of  Macon. 

January  6,  1857,  Lanier  entered  the 
sophomore  class  of  Oglethorpe,  where  it 
was  unlawful  to  purvey  any  commodity, 
except  Calvinism,  "  within  a  mile  and  a 
half  of  the  University  " — a  sad  regulation 
for  college  boys,  who,  as  a  rule,  have 
several  tastes  unconnected  with  religious 
orthodoxy. 

Lanier  carried  with  him  the  "  small,  yel 
low,  one-keyed  flute "  which  had  super 
seded  the  musical  reed  provided  by  Nature, 
and  practised  upon  it  so  fervently  that  a 
college-mate  said  that  he  "  would  play  upon 
his  flute  like  one  inspired." 

Montvale  Springs,  in  the  mountains  of 

43 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

Tennessee,  where  Sidney's  grandfather, 
Sterling  Lanier,  built  a  hotel  in  which  he 
gave  his  twenty-five  grandchildren  a  vaca 
tion  one  summer,  still  holds  the  memory  of 
that  wondrous  flute  and  yet  more  marvel 
lous  nature  among  the  "  strong,  sweet  trees, 
like  brawny  men  with  virgins'  hearts." 
From  its  ferns  and  mosses  and  "  reckless 
vines  "  and  priestly  oaks  lifting  yearning 
arms  toward  the  stars,  Lanier  returned  to 
Oglethorpe  as  a  tutor.  Here  amid  hard 
work  and  haunting  suggestions  of  a  coming 
poem,  "  The  Jacquerie,"  he  tried  to  work 
out  the  problem  of  his  life's  expression. 

When  the  guns  of  Fort  Sumter  thun 
dered  across  Sidney  Lanier's  dreams  of 
music  and  poetry,  he  joined  the  Macon 
volunteers,  the  first  company  to  march 
from  Georgia  into  Virginia.  It  was  sta 
tioned  near  Norfolk,  camping  in  the  fair- 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET" 


grounds  in  the  time  that  Lanier  describes 
as  "  the  gay  days  of  mandolin  and  guitar 
and  moonlight  sails  on  the  James  River." 
Life  there  seems  not  to  have  been  "  all  beer 
and  skittles,"  or  the  poetic  substitutes 
therefor,  for  he  goes  on  to  say  that  their 
principal  duties  were  to  picket  the  beach, 
their  "  pleasures  and  sweet  rewards  of  toil 
consisting  in  ague  which  played  dice  with 
our  bones,  and  blue  mass  pills  that  played 
the  deuce  with  our  livers." 

In  1862,  the  Company  went  to  Wil 
mington,  North  Carolina,  where  they  in 
dulged  "  for  two  or  three  months  in  what 
are  called  the  *  dry  shakes  of  the  sand-hills,' 
a  sort  of  brilliant  tremolo  movement."  The 
time  not  required  for  the  "  tremolo  move 
ment  "  was  spent  in  building  Fort  Fischer, 
until  they  were  ordered  to  Drewry's  Bluff, 
and  then  to  the  Chickahominy,  where  they 
took  part  in  the  Seven  Days'  fight. 

45 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

Even  war  places  were  literary  shrines 
for  Lanier,  for  wherever  he  chanced  to  be 
he  was  constantly  dedicating  himself  anew 
to  the  work  of  his  life.  In  Petersburg  he 
studied  in  the  Public  Library.  In  that  old 
town  he  first  saw  General  R.  E.  Lee,  and 
watched  his  calm  face  until  he  "  felt  that 
the  antique  earth  returned  out  of  the  past 
and  some  mystic  god  sat  on  a  hill,  sculp 
tured  in  stone,  presiding  over  a  terrible, 
yet  sublime,  contest  of  human  passions  " 
perhaps  the  most  poetic  conception  ever 
awakened  by  the  somewhat  familiar  view 
of  an  elderly  gentleman  asleep  under  the 
influence  of  a  sermon  on  a  drowsy  mid 
summer  day.  Writing  to  his  father  from 
Fort  Boykin,  he  asks  him  to  "  seize  at  any 
price  volumes  of  Uhland,  Lessing,  Schell- 
ing,  Tieck." 

In  the  spring  of  1863,  on  a  visit  to  his 
old  home  in  Macon,  Lanier  met  Miss  Mary 

46 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET" 


Day  and  promptly  fell  in  love,  a  fortunate 
occurrence  for  him,  in  that  he  secured  an 
inspiring  companion  in  his  short  and  bril 
liant  life,  and  for  us  because  it  is  to  her 
loving  care  that  we  owe  the  preservation 
of  much  of  his  finest  work.  On  the  return 
to  Virginia,  he  and  his  brother  Clifford 
had  as  companions  the  charming  Mrs. 
Clement  C.  Clay  and  her  sister,  who 
wanted  escorts  from  Macon  to  Virginia. 
She  claims  to  have  bribed  them  with 
"broiled  partridges,  sho'  'nuf  sugar,  and 
sho'  'nuf  butter  and  spring  chickens, 
'  quality  size/  "  to  which  allurements  the 
youthful  poets  are  alleged  to  have  suc 
cumbed  with  grace  and  gallantry.  I  re 
call  an  evening  that  General  Pickett  and 
I  spent  with  Mrs.  Clay  at  the  Spotswood 
Hotel,  when  she  told  us  of  her  trip  from 
Macon,  and  her  two  poet  escorts.  I  re 
member  that  Senator  Vest  was  present  and 

47 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

played  the  violin  while  Senator  and  Mrs. 
Clay  danced. 

Sidney  Lanier  said  of  his  experience  at 
Fort  Boykin,  on  Burwell's  Bay,  that  it  was 
in  many  respects  "  the  most  delicious  pe 
riod  "  of  his  life.  It  may  be  that  no  other 
young  soldier  found  so  much  of  romance 
and  poetry  in  the  service  of  Mars  or  put 
so  much  of  it  into  the  lives  of  those  around 
him.  There  are  old  men,  now,  who  in 
their  youth  lived  on  the  James  River,  in 
whose  hearts  the  melody  of  Sidney  Lanier's 
flute  yet  lingers  in  golden  fire  and  dewy 
flowering.  At  Fort  Boykin  he  decided  the 
question  of  his  vocation,  writing  to  his 
father  so  eloquent  a  letter  upon  the  desira 
bility  of  pursuing  his  tastes,  rather  than 
trying  to  follow  the  paternal  footsteps  in 
a  profession  for  which  he  had  no  talent, 

48 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET" 


that   his   father   relinquished   all   hope   of 
making  a  lawyer  of  his  gifted  son. 

In  Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  Lanier 
served  as  signal  officer  until  he  was  cap 
tured  and  taken  to  the  prison  camp  at 
Point  Lookout,  in  which  gloomy  place  was 
developed  the  disease  which  in  a  few  years 
deprived  literature  and  music  of  a  light 
that  would  have  sparkled  in  beauty 
through  the  mists  of  centuries.  Imprison 
ment  did  not  serve  as  an  interruption  to 
the  work  of  the  student,  for  even  a  prison 
cell  was  a  shrine  to  the  radiant  gods  of 
Lanier's  vision.  Probably  Heine  and 
Herder  were  never  before  translated  in 
surroundings  so  little  congenial  to  those 
masters  of  poesy.  One  of  his  fellow-pris 
oners  said  that  Lanier's  flute  "  was  an 
angel  imprisoned  with  us  to  cheer  and  con 
sole  us."  To  the  few  who  are  left  to  re- 

49 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

member  him  at  that  time,  the  waves  of  the 
Chesapeake,  with  the  sandy  beach  sweep 
ing  down  to  kiss  the  waters,  and  the  far- 
off  dusky  pines,  are  still  melodious  with 
that  music. 

After  his  release  he  was  taken  to  the 
Macon  home,  where  he  was  dangerously  ill 
for  two  months,  being  there  when  General 
Wilson  captured  the  town  and  Mr.  Jeffer 
son  Davis  and  Senator  Clement  C.  Clay 
were  brought  to  the  Lanier  house  on  their 
gloomy  journey  to  Fortress  Monroe.  In 
that  month  Lanier's  mother  died  of  con 
sumption,  and  he  spent  the  summer  months 
at  home  with  his  father  and  sister.  In 
the  autumn  he  taught  on  a  large  plantation 
nine  miles  from  Macon,  where,  with  "  mind 
fairly  teeming  with  beautiful  things/'  he 
was  shut  up  in  the  "  tare  and  tret "  of  the 
school-room.  He  spent  the  winter  at  Point 
Clear  on  Mobile  Bay,  breathing  in  health 

50 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET" 


with    the    sea-breezes    and    the    air    that 
drifted  fragrantly  through  the  pines. 

As  clerk  in  the  Exchange  Hotel  in 
Montgomery,  the  property  of  his  grand 
father  and  his  uncles,  he  may  have  found 
no  more  advantageous  a  field  for  his 
"  beautiful  things  "  than  in  the  Georgia 
school-room,  but  even  in  that  "  dreamy 
and  drowsy  and  drone-y  town  "  there  was 
some  life  "  late  in  the  afternoon,  when  the 
girls  come  out  one  by  one  and  shine  and 
move,  just  as  the  stars  do  an  hour  later." 
But  Lanier  was  as  patient  and  self-con 
tained  in  peace  as  he  had  been  brave  in  war, 
and  he  accepted  the  drowsy  life  of  Mont 
gomery  as  he  had  accepted  the  romance 
and  adventures  of  Fort  Boykin,  on  Sun 
days  playing  the  pipe-organ  in  the  Presby 
terian  Church,  and  spending  his  leisure  in 
finishing  "  Tiger  Lilies,"  begun  in  the  wild 
days  of  '63,  on  Burwell's  Bay.  In  1867 

51 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

he  returned  to  Macon,  where  in  September 
he  read  the  proof  of  his  book,  his  one  ef 
fort  at  romance-writing,  chiefly  noticeable 
for  its  musical  element.  The  fluting  of  the 
author  is  recalled  by  the  description  of  the 
hero's  flute-playing:  "  It  is  like  walking  in 
the  woods  among  wild  flowers  just  before 
you  go  into  some  vast  cathedral." 

The  next  winter  Sidney  Lanier  was 
teaching  in  Prattville,  Alabama,  a  town 
built  on  a  quagmire  by  Daniel  Pratt,  of 
whom  one  of  his  negroes  said  his  "  Massa 
seemed  dissatisfied  with  the  way  God  had 
made  the  earth  and  he  was  always  digging 
down  the  hills  and  filling  up  the  hollows." 
Prattville  was  a  small  manufacturing  town, 
and  Lanier  was  about  as  appropriately 
placed  there  as  Arion  would  have  been  in 
a  tin-shop,  but  he  kept  his  humorous  out 
look  on  life,  departing  from  his  serenity 

62 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET" 


so  far  as  to  make  his  only  attempts  at  ex 
pressing  in  verse  his  political  indignation, 
the  results  of  which  he  did  not  regard  as 
poetry,  and  they  do  not  appear  in  the  col 
lection  of  his  poems.  His  muse  was  better 
adapted  to  the  harmonies  than  to  the  dis 
cords  of  life.  Some  lines  written  then  fur 
nish  a  graphic  picture  of  conditions  in  the 
South  at  that  time: 

Young  Trade  is  dead, 

And  swart  Work  sullen  sits  in  the  hillside  fern 
And  folds  his  arms  that  find  no  bread  to  earn, 

And  bows   his  head. 

In  1868,  after  Lanier's  marriage,  he  took 
up  the  practice  of  law  in  his  father's  office 
in  Macon.  In  that  town  he  made  his  elo 
quent  Confederate  Memorial  address, 
April  26,  1870. 

Lanier,  to  whom  "  Home "  meant  all 
that  was  radiant  and  joyous  in  life,  wrote 

53 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

to  Paul  Hamilton  Hayne  that  he  was 
"  homeless  as  the  ghost  of  Judas  Iscariot." 
He  was  thrust  upon  a  wandering  existence 
by  the  always  unsuccessful  attempt  to  find 
strength  enough  to  do  his  work.  At  Bruns 
wick  he  found  the  scene  of  his  Marsh 
poems  in  "  the  length  and  the  breadth  and 
the  sweep  of  the  marshes  of  Glynn,"  in 
which  he  reaches  his  depth  of  poetic  feel 
ing  and  his  height  of  poetic  expression. 

From  Lookout  Mountain  he  wrote 
Hayne  that  at  about  midnight  he  had  re 
ceived  his  letter  and  poem,  and  had  read 
the  poem  to  some  friends  sitting  on  the 
porch,  among  them  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis. 
From  Alleghany  Springs  he  wrote  his 
wife  that  new  strength  and  new  serenity 
"  continually  flash  from  out  the  gorges,  the 
mountains,  and  the  streams  into  the  heart 
and  charge  it  as  the  lightnings  charge  the 
earth  with  subtle  and  heavenly  fires." 

54 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET" 


Lanier's  soul  belonged  to  music  more  than 
to  any  other  form  of  art,  and  more  than 
any  other  has  he  linked  music  with  poetry 
and  the  ever-varying  phenomena  of  Na 
ture.  Of  a  perfect  day  in  Macon  he  wrote : 
"  If  the  year  was  an  orchestra,  to-day 
would  be  the  calm,  passionate,  even,  in 
tense,  quiet,  full,  ineffable  flute  therein." 

In  November,  1872,  Lanier  went  to  San 
Antonio  in  quest  of  health,  which  he  did 
not  find.  Incidentally,  he  found  hitherto 
unrevealed  depths  of  feeling  in  his  "  poor 
old  flute  "  which  caused  the  old  leader  of 
the  Maennerchor,  who  knew  the  whole 
world  of  music,  to  cry  out  with  enthusiasm 
that  he  had  "  never  heard  de  flude  accom 
pany  itself  pefore." 

That  part  of  his  musical  life  which  Sid 
ney  Lanier  gave  to  the  world  was  for  the 
most  part  spent  in  Baltimore,  where  he 
played  in  the  Peabody  Orchestra,  the  Ger- 

55 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

mania  Maennerchor,  and  other  music  so 
cieties.  An  old  German  musician  who  used 
to  play  with  him  in  the  Orchestra  told  me 
that  Lanier  was  the  finest  flutist  he  had 
ever  heard. 

It  was  in  Baltimore,  too,  that  he  gave 
the  lectures  which  resulted  in  his  most  im 
portant  prose-writings,  "  The  Science  of 
English  Verse,"  "The  English  Novel," 
"  Shakespeare  and  His  Forerunners." 

In  August,  1874,  at  Sunnyside,  Georgia, 
amid  the  loneliness  of  abandoned  farms, 
the  glory  of  cornfields,  and  the  mysterious 
beauty  of  forest,  he  wrote  "  Corn,"  the 
first  of  his  poems  to  attract  the  attention 
of  the  country.  It  was  published  in 
Lippincott's  in  1875.  Charlotte  Cushman 
was  so  charmed  by  it  that  she  sought  out 
the  author  in  Baltimore,  and  the  two  be 
came  good  friends. 

At  64  Centre  Street,  Baltimore,  Lanier 

56 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET" 


wrote  "  The  Symphony,"  which  he  said 
took  hold  of  him  "  about  four  days  ago 
like  a  real  James  River  ague,  and  I  have 
been  in  a  mortal  shake  with  the  same,  day 
and  night,  ever  since,"  which  is  the  only 
way  that  a  real  poem  or  real  music  or  a 
real  picture  ever  can  get  into  the  world. 
He  says  that  he  "  will  be  rejoiced  when  it 
is  finished,  for  it  verily  racks  all  the  bones 
of  my  spirit."  It  appeared  in  Lippincott's, 
June,  1875. 

Lanier  was  at  66  Centre  Street,  Balti 
more,  when  he  wrote  the  words  of  the  Cen 
tennial  Cantata,  which  he  said  he  "  tried 
to  make  as  simple  and  candid  as  a  melody 
of  Beethoven."  He  wrote  to  a  friend  that 
he  was  not  disturbed  because  a  paper  had 
said  that  the  poem  of  the  Cantata  was  like 
a  "  communication  from  the  spirit  of  Nat 
Lee  through  a  Bedlamite  medium."  It 
was  "  but  a  little  grotesque  episode,  as 

67 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

when  a  catbird  paused  in  the  midst  of  the 
most  exquisite  roulades  and  melodies  to 
mew  and  then  take  up  his  song  again." 

In  December  of  that  year  he  was  com 
pelled  to  seek  a  milder  climate  in  Florida, 
taking  with  him  a  commission  to  write  a 
book  about  Florida  for  the  J.  B.  Lippin- 
cott  Company.  Upon  arriving  at  Tampa, 
he  wrote  to  a  friend: 

Tampa  is  the  most  forlorn  collection  of  little 
one-story  frame  houses  imaginable,  and  as  May 
and  I  walked  behind  our  landlord,  who  was  pilot 
ing  us  to  Orange  Grove  Hotel,  our  hearts  fell 
nearer  and  nearer  towards  the  sand  through 
which  we  dragged.  Presently  we  turned  a  corner 
and  were  agreeably  surprised  to  find  ourselves 
in  front  of  a  large  three-story  house  with  old 
nooks  and  corners,  clean  and  comfortable  in  ap 
pearance  and  surrounded  by  orange  trees  in 
full  fruit.  We  have  a  large  room  in  the  second 
story,  opening  upon  a  generous  balcony  fifty  feet 
long,  into  which  stretch  the  liberal  arms  of  a 
fine  orange  tree  holding  out  their  fruitage  to 
58 


SIDNEY    LANIER 
From  a  photograph  owned  by  H.  \V.  Lanier 


"  THE  SUNRISE  POET  " 


our  very  lips.  In  front  is  a  sort  of  open  plaza 
containing  a  pretty  group  of  gnarled  live-oaks 
full  of  moss  and  mistletoe. 

In  May  he  made  an  excursion  of  which 
he  wrote: 

For  a  perfect  journey  God  gave  us  a  perfect 
day.  The  little  Ocklawaha  steamboat  Marion — 
a  steamboat  which  is  like  nothing  in  the  world 
so  much  as  a  Pensacola  gopher  with  a  prepos 
terously  exaggerated  back — had  started  from 
Palatka  some  hours  before  daylight,  having  taken 
on  her  passengers  the  night  previous;  and  by 
seven  o'clock  of  such  a  May  morning  as  no 
words  could  describe,  unless  words  were  them 
selves  May  mornings,  we  had  made  the  twenty- 
five  miles  up  the  St.  John's  to  where  the 
Ocklawaha  flows  into  that  stream  nearly  opposite 
Welaka,  one  hundred  miles  above  Jacksonville. 

It  was  on  this  journey  that  he  saw  the 
most  magnificent  residence  that  he  had 
ever  beheld,  the  home  of  an  old  friend  of 
his,  an  alligator,  who  possessed  a  number 
of  such  palatial  mansions  and  could  change 

59 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

his  residence  at  any  time  by  the  simple 
process  of  swimming  from  one  to  another. 
On  his  return  to  Baltimore  he  lived  at 
55  Lexington  in  four  rooms  arranged  as 
a  French  flat.  He  makes  mention  of  a 
gas  stove  "  on  which  my  comrade  magically 
produces  the  best  coffee  in  the  world,  and 
this,  with  fresh  eggs  (boiled  through  the 
same  handy  little  machine),  bread,  butter, 
and  milk,  forms  our  breakfast."  Decem 
ber  3  he  writes  from  the  little  French  flat, 
announcing  that  he  "  has  plunged  in  and 
brought  forth  captive  a  long  Christmas 
poem  for  Every  Saturday"  a  Baltimore 
weekly  publication.  The  poem  was  "  Hard 
Times  in  Elfland."  He  says,  "  Wife  and 
I  have  been  to  look  at  a  lovely  house 
with  eight  rooms  and  many  charming  ap 
pliances,"  whereof  the  rent  was  less  than 
that  of  the  four  rooms. 

60 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET" 


The  next  month  he  writes  from  33  Den- 
mead  Street,  the  eight-room  house,  to 
which  he  had  gone,  with  the  attendant  ne 
cessity  of  buying  "  at  least  three  hundred 
twenty-seven  household  utensils "  and 
"  hiring  a  colored  gentlewoman  who  is 
willing  to  wear  out  my  carpets,  burn  out 
my  range,  freeze  out  my  water-pipes,  and 
be  generally  useful."  He  mentions  having 
written  a  couple  of  poems,  and  part  of  an 
essay  on  Beethoven  and  Bismarck,  but  his 
chief  delight  is  in  his  new  home,  which  in 
vests  him  with  the  dignity  of  paying  taxes 
and  water  rates.  He  takes  the  view  that 
no  man  is  a  Bohemian  who  has  to  pay 
water  rates  and  street  tax. 

In  addition  to  supporting  his  new  dig 
nity  he  finds  time  and  strength  for  his 
usual  work,  and  he  writes  on  January  30, 
1878,  "  I  have  been  mainly  at  work  on 

61 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

some  unimportant  prose  matter  for  pot 
boilers,  but  I  get  off  a  short  poem  occa 
sionally,  and  in  the  background  of  my 
mind  am  writing  my  Jacquerie."  Unfor 
tunately,  "  Jacquerie "  remained  in  the 
background  of  his  mind,  with  the  exception 
of  two  songs — all  we  have  to  indicate  what 
a  stirring  presentation  our  literature  might 
have  had  of  the  fourteenth  century  awak 
ening  of  "  Jacques  Bonhomme,"  that  early 
precursor  of  the  more  terrible  arousing  in 
'  Ninety-Three. 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  year  Lanier 
was  living  at  Number  180  St.  Paul  Street, 
and  in  December  he  wrote  to  a  friend: 
"  Bayard  Taylor's  death  slices  a  huge  can- 
tie  out  of  the  world.  ...  It  only  seems 
that  he  has  gone  to  some  other  Germany 
a  little  farther  off.  ...  He  was  such 
a  fine  fellow,  one  almost  thinks  he  might 

69 


"  THE  SUNRISE  POET  " 


have   talked  Death   over   and   made  him 
forego  his  stroke." 

At  Bayard  Taylor's  home,  where  Lanier 
visited,  were  two  immense  chestnut  trees, 
much  loved  by  the  two  poets.  Mrs.  Taylor 
wrote  that  one  of  the  trees  died  soon  after 
the  death  of  its  poet  owner.  The  other 
lingered  until  a  short  time  after  the  pass 
ing  of  Lanier.  It  was  in  connection  with 
the  lines  of  the  "  Cantata,"  written  in  the 
Baltimore  home  of  the  Southern  poet,  that 
the  poet  friends  began  a  long-continued 
series  of  letters  which  one  loves  to  read  on 
a  winter  night,  when  the  winds  are  battling 
with  the  world  outside,  and  the  fire  gleams 
redly  in  the  open  grate,  and  the  lamp  burns 
softly  on  the  library  table,  and  all  things 
invite  to  poetic  dreams. 

November  12,  1880,  Sidney  Lanier 
wrote  to  his  publisher  a  letter  of  apprecia 
tion  of  the  beautiful  work  done  upon  his 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

volume,  "  The  Boy's  King  Arthur."  It  is 
dated  at  Number  435  North  Calvert  Street, 
the  latest  Baltimore  address  that  we  have. 

The  distinction  Sidney  Lanier  achieved 
as  first  flutist  in  the  orchestra  of  the  Pea- 
body  Institute  led  to  an  offer  of  a  position 
in  the  Thomas  Orchestra,  which  the  condi 
tion  of  his  health  did  not  permit  him  to 
accept. 

In  the  summer  of  1880  his  "  Science  of 
English  Verse  "  was  published.  "  Shakes 
peare  and  His  Forerunners  "  resulted  from 
his  work  with  his  classes  in  Elizabethan 
Poetry.  "The  English  Novel"  is  the 
course  of  lectures  on  "  Personality  Illus 
trated  by  the  Development  of  Fiction,"  de 
livered  at  Johns  Hopkins  University  in  the 
winter  of  1880-'81.  As  we  read  the  printed 
work  in  its  depth  and  strength,  we  do  not 
realize  that  his  wife  took  the  notes  from  his 

64 


"THE  SUNRISE  POET" 


whispered  dictation,  and  that  his  auditors 
as  they  listened  trembled  lest,  with  each 
sentence,  that  deep  musical  voice  should 
fall  on  eternal  silence.  All  this  while 
he  had  been  working  at  lectures  and  boys' 
books,  when,  as  he  said,  "  a  thousand  songs 
are  singing  in  my  heart  that  will  certainly 
kill  me  if  I  do  not  utter  them  soon."  One 
of  the  thousand,  "  Sunrise,"  he  uttered 
with  a  temperature  of  104  degrees  burn 
ing  out  his  life,  but  it  is  full  of  the  rap 
ture  of  the  dawn. 

To  the  pines  of  North  Carolina  the  poet 
was  taken,  in  the  hope  that  they  might  give 
him  of  their  strength.  But  the  wind-song 
through  their  swaying  branches  lulled  him 
to  his  last  earthly  sleep.  On  the  7th  of 
September  the  narrow  stream  of  his  earthly 
existence  broadened  and  deepened  and 
flowed  triumphantly  into  the  great  ocean  of 
Eternal  Life. 

65 


THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES 

PAUL  HAMILTON  HAYNE 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

PAUL  HAMILTON  HAYNE 

"  Why  are  not  your  countrymen  all 
poets,  surrounded  as  they  are  by  beautiful 
things  to  inspire  them?  "  I  asked  a  young 
Swiss. 

"  Because,"  he  replied,  "  my  people  are 
so  accustomed  to  beauty  that  it  has  no  in 
fluence  upon  them." 

They  had  never  known  anything  but 
beauty:  there  were  no  sharp  contrasts  to 
clash,  flint-like,  and  strike  out  sparks  of 
divine  fire. 

Had  the  beauty  of  old  Charleston  pro 
duced  the  same  negative  effect,  Southern 
literature  would  have  suffered  a  distinct 
loss — if  that  may  be  regarded  as  lost 
which  has  never  been  possessed.  For  cen 
turies  the  Queen  of  the  Sea  stood  in  a 

69 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

vision  of  splendor,  the  tumultuous  waves  of 
the  Atlantic  dashing  at  her  feet,  eternal 
sunshine  crowning  her  royal  brow.  Her 
gardens  were  stately  with  oleanders  and 
pomegranates,  brilliant  with  jonquils  and 
hyacinths,  myrtle  and  gardenia.  Roses  of 
the  olden  time,  Lancaster  and  York  and 
the  sweet  pink  cinnamon,  breathed  the 
fragrance  of  days  long  past.  The  hills  that 
environed  her  were  snowy  with  Cherokee 
roses  and  odorous  with  jasmine  and  honey 
suckle.  Her  people  dwelt  in  mansions  in 
the  corridors  of  which  ancestral  ghosts 
from  Colonial  days  kept  guard. 

In  old  Charleston  that  goes  back  in  his 
tory  almost  a  century  before  the  Revolu 
tion  and  extends  to  the  opening  of  the 
Sixties — the  old  Queen  City  by  the  Sea, 
which  now  few  are  left  to  remember 
—was  a  circle  of  congenial  creative  souls 
just  before  the  first  shot  at  Fort  Sumter 

70 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

heralded  the  destruction  of  the  old-time 
life  of  the  Colonial  city.  William  Gilmore 
Simms  was  the  head  and  mentor  of  the 
brilliant  little  band,  and  the  much  younger 
men,  Paul  Hamilton  Hayne  and  Henry 
Timrod,  were  the  fiery  souls  that  gave  it  the 
mental  electricity  necessary  to  furnish  the 
motive  power.  Through  all  the  coming 
days  of  trial  and  hardship,  of  aspiration  and 
defeat,  of  watching  from  the  towers  of 
high  achievement  or  lying  prone  in  the  val 
ley  of  failure,  not  one  of  that  little  circle 
ever  lost  the  golden  memory  of  those  magic 
evenings  in  the  home  of  the  novelist  and 
poet,  the  thinker  and  dreamer,  William 
Gilmore  Simms,  the  intellectual  father  of 
them  all. 

At  that  time  in  the  old  city  was  another 
picturesque  home  that  harked  back  to 
Colonial  days — stately,  veranda-circled, 
surrounded  by  that  fascinating  atmosphere 

71 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

of  history  and  poetry  known  to  those  old 
dwellings  alone  of  all  the  structures  of  the 
New  World:  the  home  of  the  Southern 
poet  of  Nature,  Paul  Hamilton  Hayne. 
Its  many-windowed  front  looked  cheer 
fully  out  upon  a  wide  lawn  radiant  with 
flowers  of  bygone  fashion,  loved  by  the 
poets  of  olden  times,  and  bright  with  the 
greenery  that  kept  perpetual  summer 
around  the  historic  dwelling.  This  beauti 
ful  pre-Revolutionary  home  was  burned  in 
the  bombardment  of  Charleston,  and  with 
it  was  destroyed  the  library  that  had  been 
the  pride  of  the  poet's  heart. 

In  this  old  home  the  Poet  of  the  Pines 
was  born  of  a  family  that  looked  back  to 
the  opening  days  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
when  Charleston  was  young,  glowing  with 
the  beauty  of  her  birth  into  the  forests  of 
the  New  World,  wearing  proudly  the  tiara 
of  her  loyalty  to  King  and  Crown.  Look- 

79 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

ing  back  along  the  road  that  stretched  be 
tween  the  first  Hayne,  who  helped  to  make 
of  the  old  city  a  memory  to  be  cherished 
on  the  page  of  history  and  a  picture  on  the 
canvas  of  the  present  to  awaken  admira 
tion,  and  the  young  soul  that  looked  with 
poetic  vision  on  the  beginning  of  the  new 
era,  one  sees  a  long  succession  of  brilliant 
names  and  powerful  figures. 

Paul  Hayne  was  the  great-grand- 
nephew  of  "  the  Martyr  Hayne,"  who 
has  given  to  Charleston  her  only  authentic 
ghost-story,  the  scene  of  which  was  a  brick 
dwelling  which  stood  till  1896  at  the  cor 
ner  of  Atlantic  and  Meeting  Streets. 
Colonel  Isaac  H.  Hayne,  a  soldier  of  the 
Revolution,  secured  a  parole,  that  he  might 
be  with  his  dying  wife.  While  on  parole  he 
was  ordered  to  fight  against  his  country. 
Rather  than  be  forced  to  the  crime  of 
treason,  he  broke  his  parole,  was  captured 

73 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

and  condemned  to  death.  From  her  beau 
tiful,  mahogany-panelled  drawing-room  in 
that  old  home  where  the  two  streets  cross, 
his  sister-in-law,  who  had  gone  with  his 
two  little  children  to  plead  for  his  life, 
watched  as  he  passed  on  his  way  from  the 
vault  of  the  old  Custom  House,  used  then 
as  a  prison,  to  the  gallows.  "  Return,  re 
turn  to  us!"  she  called  in  an  agony  of 
grief.  As  he  walked  on  he  replied,  "If 
I  can  I  will."  It  is  said  that  his  old  negro 
mammy,  to  whom  he  was  always  "  my 
chile,"  ran  out  to  the  gate  with  the  play 
things  she  had  fondly  cherished  since  the 
days  when  they  were  to  him  irresistible 
attractions,  crying,  "  Come  back!  Come 
back!  "  To  both  calls  his  heart  responded 
with  such  longing  love  that  when  the  soul 
was  released,  the  old  home  knew  the  step 
and  the  voice  again.  Ever  afterward  when 
eventide  fell,  one  standing  at  that  window 

74 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES'' 

would  hear  a  ghostly  voice  from  the  street 
below  and  steps  upon  the  stairs  and  in 
the  hall;  footsteps  of  one  coming — never 
going. 

Paul  Hamilton  Hayne's  uncle,  Colonel 
Arthur  P.  Hayne,  fought  under  Jackson 
at  New  Orleans,  and  was  afterward  United 
States  Senator.  Paul  was  nephew  of 
Robert  Y.  Hayne,  whose  career  as  a  states 
man  and  an  orator  won  for  him  a  fame 
that  has  not  faded  with  the  years.  With 
this  uncle,  Paul  found  a  home  in  his 
orphaned  childhood. 

Of  his  sailor  father,  Lieutenant  Hayne, 
his  shadowy  memory  takes  form  in  a  poem, 
one  stanza  of  which  gives  us  a  view  of  the 
brave  seaman's  life  and  death: 

He   perished  not   in   conflict   nor   in   flame, 
No  laurel  garland  rests  upon  his  tomb; 
Yet  in  stern  duty's  path  he  met  his    doom ; 

A  life  heroic,  though  unwed  to  fame. 
75 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

Though  he  pathetically  mourns: 

Never  in  childhood  have  I  blithely   sprung 
To  catch  my  father's  voice,  or  climb  his  knee, 

Still 

Love  limned  his  wavering  likeness  on  my  soul, 
Till  through  slow  growths  it  waxed  a  perfect 

whole 
Of  clear  conceptions,  brightening  heart  and  mind. 

That  clear  conception  remained  a  lifelong 
treasure  in  the  poet's  heart. 

Through  a  great  ancestral  corridor  had 
Paul  Hamilton  Hayne  descended,  with 
soul  en  jewelled  with  all  the  gems  of  char 
acter  and  thought  that  had  sparkled  in  the 
long  gallery  through  which  he  had  trav 
elled  into  the  earth-light. 

In  the  school  of  Mr.  Coates,  in  Charles 
ton,  he  was  fitted  to  enter  Charleston  Col 
lege,  a  plain,  narrow-fronted  structure 

76 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

with  six  severely  classic  columns  support 
ing  the  facade.  It  stood  on  the  foundation 
of  the  "  old  brick  barracks  "  held  by  the 
Colonial  troops  through  a  six-weeks  siege 
by  twelve  thousand  British  regulars  under 
Sir  Henry  Clinton. 

Hayne  satisfied  the  hunger  and  thirst  of 
his  excursive  and  ardent  mind  by  brows 
ing  in  the  Charleston  Library  on  Broad 
and  Church  streets.  It  may  be  that  some 
times,  on  his  way  to  that  friendly  resort,  he 
passed  the  old  house  on  Church  Street 
which  once  sheltered  General  Washington; 
a  substantial  three-storied  building  with 
ornamental  woodwork  which  might  cause 
its  later  use  as  a  bakery  to  seem  out  of  har 
mony  to  any  but  chefs  with  high  ideals  of 
their  art. 

The  Library  of  old  Charleston  was  com 
posed  chiefly  of  English  classics  and  the 
literature  of  France  in  the  olden  time  when 

77 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

Europe  furnished  us  with  something  more 
than  anarchy,  clothes,  and  bargain-counter 
titles.  A  sample  of  the  Young  America  of 
that  early  day  asked  an  old  gentleman, 
"  Why  are  you  always  reading  that  old 
Montaigne?"  The  reply  was,  "Why, 
child,  there  is  in  this  book  all  that  a  gentle 
man  needs  to  think  about,"  with  the  dis 
creet  addition,  "  Not  a  book  for  little  girls, 
though."  If  we  find  in  our  circle  of  poets 
a  certain  stateliness  of  style  scarcely  to  be 
looked  for  in  a  somewhat  new  republic  that 
might  be  expected  to  rush  pell-mell  after 
an  idea  and  capture  it  by  the  sudden  impact 
of  a  lusty  blow,  after  the  manner  of  the 
minute-men  catching  a  red-coat  at  Lexing 
ton;  if  we  observe  in  their  writing  old 
world  expressions  that  woo  us  subtly, 
like  the  odor  of  lavender  from  a  long- 
closed  linen  chest,  we  may  attribute  it  to 
the  fact  that  aristocratic  old  Charleston, 

78 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

though  the  first  to  assert  her  independence 
of  the  political  yoke,  yet  clung  tenaciously 
to  the  literary  ideals  of  the  Old  World. 

On  Meeting  Street  was  Apprentices' 
Library  Hall,  where  Glidden  led  his  hear 
ers  through  the  intricacies  of  Egyptian 
Archseology.  Here  Agassiz  sometimes 
lectured  on  Zoology,  and  our  youthful  poet 
may  have  watched  animals  from  the  jungle 
climb  up  the  blackboard  at  the  touch  of 
what  would  have  been  only  a  piece  of  chalk 
in  any  other  hand,  but  became  a  magic 
creative  force  under  the  guidance  of  that 
wizard  of  science.  Here  he  could  have 
followed  with  Thackeray  the  varying  for 
tunes  and  ethic  vagaries  of  the  royal 
Georges.  His  poetic  soul  may  have 
kindled  with  the  fire  of  Macready's  "  Ham 
let  "  when,  thinking  that  he  was  too  far 
down  the  slope  of  life  to  hark  back  to  the 
days  of  the  youthful  Dane,  he  proved  that 

79 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

he  still  had  the  glow  of  the  olden  time  in 
his  soul  by  reading  the  part  as  only 
Macready  could.  In  this  old  hall  he  may 
have  looked  upon  the  paintings  which  in 
spired  him  to  create  his  own  pictures,  lum 
inous  with  softly  tinted  word-colors. 

Meeting  Street  seems  to  have  been 
named  with  reference  to  its  uses,  for  here, 
too,  was  the  old  theatre,  gone  long  ago, 
where  Fannie  Ellsler  danced  with  a  waver 
ing,  quivering,  shimmering  grace  that 
drove  humming-birds  to  despair.  In  that 
theatre  it  may  be  that  Paul  Hayne  heard 
Jenny  Lind  fill  the  night  with  a  melody 
which  would  irradiate  his  soul  throughout 
life  and  reproduce  itself  in  the  music-tones 
of  his  gently  cadenced  verse.  There  the 
ill-fated  Adrienne  Lecouvreur  lived  and 
died  again  in  her  wondrous  transmigration 
into  the  soul  of  the  great  Rachel. 

When  a  boy,  Hayne's  heart  may  have 

80 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

often  thrilled  to  the  voice  of  the  scholarly 
Hugh  Swinton  Legare,  as  he  made  the 
heart  of  some  classic  old  poem  live  in  the 
music  of  his  organ-tones. 

A  sensitive  soul  surrounded  by  the  in 
fluences  of  life  in  old  Charleston  had 
many  incentives  to  high  and  harmonious 
expression. 

That  the  Queen  City  of  the  Sea  did  not 
claim  the  privilege  of  the  fickleness  alleged 
to  be  incident  to  the  feminine  character  is 
illustrated  by  the  fact  that  she  had  but  two 
postmasters  in  seventy  years,  a  circum 
stance  worthy  of  note  "  in  days  like  these," 
"  when  ev'ry  gate  is  thronged  with  suitors, 
all  the  markets  overflow,"  and  the  disburs 
ing  counter  is  crowded  with  claimants  for 
the  rewards  due  for  commendable  activity 
in  the  campaign.  One  of  those  two  was 
Peter  Bascot,  an  appointee  of  Washing 
ton.  The  other  was  Alfred  Huger,  "  the 

81 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

last  of  the  Barons,"  who  had  refused  to 
take  the  office  in  the  time  of  Bascot. 

In  old  Charleston  the  servants  were  the 
severest  sticklers  for  propriety,  and  the 
butlers  of  the  old  families  rivalled  each 
other  in  the  loftiness  of  their  standards. 
Jack,  the  butler  of  "the  last  of  the 
Barons,"  was  wide  awafefc  to  the  demands 
of  his  position,  and  when  an  old  sea  cap 
tain,  an  intimate  friend  of  Mr.  Huger, 
dining  with  the  family,  asked  for  rice  when 
the  fish  was  served  he  was  first  met  with  a 
chill  silence.  Thinking  that  he  had  not 
been  heard,  he  repeated  the  request.  Jack 
bent  and  whispered  to  him.  With  a  burst 
of  laughter,  the  captain  said,  "  Judge,  you 
have  a  treasure.  Jack  has  saved  me  from 
disgrace,  from  exposing  my  ignorance.  He 
whispered,  'That  would  not  do,  sir;  we 
never  eats  rice  with  fish/ 

Russell's  book-shop  on  King  Street  was 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

a  favorite  place  of  meeting  for  the  Club 
which  recognized  Simms  as  king  by  divine 
right.  From  these  pleasant  gatherings 
grew  the  thought  of  giving  to  Charleston  a 
medium  through  which  the  productions  of 
her  thought  might  go  out  to  the  world. 
In  April,  1857,  appeared  Russell's  Maga 
zine,,  bearing  the  names  of  Paul  Hamilton 
Hayne  and  W.  B.  Carlisle  as  editors, 
though  upon  Hayne  devolved  all  the 
editorial  work  and  much  of  the  other  writ 
ing  for  the  new  publication.  He  had 
helped  to  keep  alive  the  Southern  Literary 
Messenger  after  the  death  of  Mr.  White 
and  the  departure  of  Poe  for  other  fields 
of  labor,  had  assisted  Richards  on  the 
Southern  Literary  Gazette  and  had  been 
associate  editor  of  Harvey's  Spectator. 
For  Charleston  had  long  been  ambitious  to 
become  the  literary  centre  of  the  South. 
The  object  of  Russell's  Magazine  was  to 

83 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

uphold  the  cause  of  literature  in  Charleston 
and  in  the  South,  and  incidentally  to  stand 
by  the  friends  of  the  young  editor,  who 
carried  his  partisanship  of  William  Gil- 
more  Simms  so  far  as  to  permit  the  pub 
lication  of  a  severe  criticism  of  Dana's 
"  Household  Book  of  Poetry  "  because  it 
did  not  include  any  of  the  verse  of  the 
Circle's  rugged  mentor.  Russell's  had  a 
brilliant  and  brief  career,  falling  upon 
silence  in  March,  1860;  probably  not  much 
to  the  regret  of  Paul  Hayne,  who,  while 
too  conscientious  to  withhold  his  best  effort 
from  any  enterprise  that  claimed  him,  was 
too  distinctly  a  poet  not  to  feel  somewhat 
like  Pegasus  in  pound  when  tied  down  to 
the  editorial  desk. 

This  quiet  life,  in  which  the  gentle  soul 
of  Hayne,  with  its  delicate  sensitiveness, 
poetic  insight,  and  appreciation  of  all 
beauty,  found  congenial  environment,  soon 

84 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

suffered  a  rude  interruption.  As  Charles 
ton  was  the  first  to  throw  off  the  yoke  of 
Great  Britain  and  draw  up  a  constitution 
which  she  thought  adapted  to  independent 
government,  so  did  she  first  express  the  de 
termination  of  South  Carolina  to  break 
the  bonds  that  held  her  turbulent  political 
soul  in  uncongenial  association. 

Hayne  heard  the  twelve-hour  cannonade 
of  Fort  Sumter's  hundred  and  forty  guns 
echoing  over  the  sea,  and  saw  the  Stars  and 
Bars  flutter  above  the  walls  of  the  old  fort. 
He  saw  Generals  Bee  and  Johnson  come 
back  from  Manassas,  folded  in  the  battle 
flag  for  which  they  had  given  their  lives,  to 
lie  in  state  in  the  City  Hall  at  the  marble 
feet  of  Calhoun,  the  great  political  leader 
whom  they  had  followed  to  the  inevitable 
end.  .General  Lee  was  in  the  old  town  for  a 
little  while.  A  man  said  to  him,  "  It  is  diffi 
cult  for  so  many  men  to  abandon  their  busi- 

85 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

ness  for  the  war."  The  general  replied, 
"  Believe  me,  sir,  the  business  of  this  gen 
eration  is  the  war."  In  the  spirit  of  this 
answer  Charleston  met  the  crisis  so  sud 
denly  come  upon  her. 

All  the  young  poet's  patriotic  love  and 
inherited  martial  instinct  urged  him  to 
the  battle,  but  his  frail  physique  withheld 
him  from  the  field,  and  he  took  service  as 
an  aide  on  the  staff  of  Governor  Pickens. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  wrecked  in 
health,  with  only  the  memory  of  his  beauti 
ful  home  and  library  left  to  him,  with  not 
even  a  piece  of  the  family  silver  remaining 
from  the  "  march  to  the  sea,"  Hayne  went 
to  the  pine-barrens  of  Georgia,  eighteen 
miles  from  Augusta,  to  build  a  new 
home. 

When  the  first  man  and  woman  were 
sent  out  from  their  garden  home,  it  was 
not  as  a  punishment  for  sin,  but  as  an 

86 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

answer  to  their  ambitious  quest  for  knowl 
edge  and  their  new-born  longing  for  a 
wider  life.  It  was  not  that  the  gate  of 
Eden  was  closed  upon  them;  it  was  that 
the  gates  of  all  the  Edens  of  the  world 
were  opened  for  them  and  for  the  genera 
tions  of  their  children.  One  of  those  gates 
opened  upon  the  Eden  of  Copse  Hill, 
where  the  poet  of  Nature  found  a  home 
and  all  friendly  souls  met  a  welcome  that 
filled  the  pine-barrens  with  joy  for  them. 
Of  Copse  Hill  the  poet  says: 

A  little  apology  for  a  dwelling  was  perched 
on  the  top  of  a  hill  overlooking  in  several  direc 
tions  hundreds  of  leagues  of  pine-barrens ;  there 
was  as  yet  neither  garden  nor  inclosure  near  it ; 
and  a  wilder,  more  desolate  and  savage-looking 
home  could  hardly  have  been  seen  east  of  the 
prairies. 

What  that  "  little  apology  of  a  dwell- 

87 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

ing  "  was  to  him  is  best  pictured  in  his  own 
words : 

On  a  steep  hillside,  to   all  airs   that  blow, 
Open,  and  open  to  the  varying  sky, 
Our  cottage  homestead,  smiling  tranquilly, 
Catches  morn's  earliest  and  eve's  latest  glow; 
Here,   far  from  worldly  strife  and  pompous 

show, 

The  peaceful  seasons  glide  serenely  by, 
Fulfil    their  missions  and    as  calmly  die 
As  waves  on  quiet  shores  when  winds  are  low. 
Fields,  lonely  paths,  the  one  small  glimmering 

rill 
That  twinkles  like  a  wood-fay's      mirthful 

eye, 

Under  moist  bay-leaves,  clouds   fantastical 
That  float  and  change  at  the  light  breeze's 

will- 
To  me,  thus  lapped  in  sylvan  luxury, 
Are  more   than   death  of  kings,   or   empires' 
fall. 

Here  with  "  the  bonny  brown  hand  "  in 
his  that  was  "  dearer  than  all  dear  things 

88 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES" 

of  earth  "  Paul  Hayne  found  a  life  that 
was  filled  with  beauty,  notwithstanding 
its  moments  of  discouragement  and  pain. 
We  like  to  remember  that  always  with 
him,  helping  him  bear  the  burdens  of  life, 
was  that  wifely  hand  of  which  the  poet 
could  say,  "  The  hand  which  points  the 
path  to  heaven,  yet  makes  a  heaven  of 
earth." 

On  sunny  days  he  paced  to  and  fro  under 
the  pines,  the  many  windows  of  his  mind 
opened  to  the  studies  in  light  and  shade  and 
his  soul  attuned  to  the  music  of  the  drifting 
winds  and  the  whispering  trees.  When 
Nature  was  in  darkened  mood  and  gave 
him  no  invitation  to  the  open  court  wherein 
she  reigned,  he  walked  up  and  down  his 
library  floor,  engrossed  with  some  beautiful 
thought  which,  in  harmonious  garb  of 
words,  would  go  forth  and  bless  the  world 
with  its  music. 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

The  study,  of  which  he  wrote: 

This  is  my  world !  within  these  narrow  walls 
I  own  a  princely  service 

was  perhaps  as  remarkable  a  room  as  any 
in  which  student  ever  spent  his  working 
hours,  the  walls  being  papered  wholly 
with  cuts  from  papers  and  periodicals. 
The  furniture  was  decorated  in  the  same 
way,  even  to  the  wTiting  desk,  which  was 
an  old  work  bench  left  by  some  carpenters. 
All  had  been  done  by  the  "  bonny  brown 
hands "  that  never  wearied  in  loving 
service. 

Many  of  his  friends  made  pilgrimages  to 
the  little  cottage  on  the  hill,  where  they 
were  cordially  welcomed  by  the  poet, 
who,  happy  in  his  home  with  his  wife 
and  little  son,  lived  among  the  flowers 
which  he  tended  writh  his  own  hands, 
surrounded  by  the  majesty  of  the  pines 
whose 

90 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

Passion     and     mystery     murmur     through     the 

leaves, — 
Passion    and    mystery    touched    by    deathless 

pain, 

Whose   monotone  of  long,   low   anguish   grieves 
For  something  lost  that  shall  not  live  again. 

Hither  came  Henry  Timrod,  doomed  to 
failure,  loss,  and  early  death,  but  with  soul 
eternally  alive  with  the  fires  of  genius.  In 
the  last  days  of  his  sad  and  broken  life 
William  Gilmore  Simms  came  to  renew 
old  memories  and  recount  the  days  when 
life  in  old  Charleston  was  iridescent  as  the 
waves  that  washed  the  feet  of  the  Queen 
of  the  Sea.  Congenial  spirits  they  were 
who  met  in  that  charming  little  study 
where  Paul  Hayne  walked  "  the  fields  of 
quiet  Arcadies  "  and 

.  .  .  gleamings  of  the  lost,  heroic  life 

Flashed      through      the      gorgeous      vistas      of 

romance. 

91 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

Hayne  had  the  subtle  power  of  touching 
the  friendliness  in  the  hearts  of  those  who 
were  far  away,  as  well  as  of  the  comrades 
who  had  walked  with  him  along  the  road  of 
life.  Often  letters  came  from  friends  in 
other  lands,  known  to  him  only  by  that 
wireless  intuitional  telegraphy  whereby 
kindred  souls  know  each  other,  though 
hands  have  not  met  nor  eyes  looked  into 
eyes.  Many  might  voice  the  thought  ex 
pressed  by  one:  "  I  may  boast  that  Paul 
Hayne  was  my  friend,  though  it  was  never 
my  good  fortune  to  meet  him."  Many  a 
soul  was  upheld  and  strengthened  by  him, 
as  was  that  of  a  man  who  wrote  that  he 
had  been  saved  from  suicide  by  reading  the 
"  Lyric  of  Action."  His  album  held  auto 
graphed  photographs  of  many  writers, 
among  them  Charles  Kingsley,  William 
Black,  and  Wilkie  Collins.  He  cherished 

99 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

an  ivy  vine  sent  him  by  Blackmore  from 
Westminister  Abbey. 

Hayne's  many- windowed  mind  looked 
out  upon  all  the  phases  of  the  beauty  of 
Nature.  Her  varied  moods  found  in  him 
a  loving  response.  He  awaited  her  coming 
as  the  devotee  at  the  temple  gate  waits  for 
the  approach  of  his  Divinity: 

I  felt,  'through  dim,     awe-laden  space, 
The  coming  of  thy  veiled  face; 

And  in  the  fragrant  night's  eclipse 

The  kisses  of  thy  deathless  lips, 
Like     strange     star-pulses,     throbbed     through 
space ! 

Whether  it  is  drear  November  and 

But  winds  foreboding  fill  the  desolate  night 
And  die  at  dawning  down  wild  woodland  ways, 

or  in  May  "  couched  in  cool  shadow  "  he 
hears 

93 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

The  bee-throngs  murmurous  in  the  golden  fern, 
The   wood-doves  veiled  by   depths   of  flickering 
green, 

for  him  the  music  of  the  spheres  is  in  it  all. 
Whether  at  midnight 

The  moon,  a  ghost  of  her  sweet  self, 

Creeps  up  the  gray,  funereal  sky 
wearily,  how  wearily, 

or  morning  comes  "  with  gracious  breath 
of  sunlight,"  it  is  a  part  of  glorious 
Nature,  his  star-crowned  Queen,  his  sun- 
clad  goddess. 

To  no  other  heart  has  the  pine  forest 
come  so  near  unfolding  its  immemorial 
secret.  That  poet-mind  w(as  a  wind-harp, 
and  its  quivering  strings  echoed  to  every 
message  that  came  from  the  dim  old  woods 
on  the  "  soft  whispers  of  the  twilight 

94 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  PINES  " 

breeze,"  the  flutterings  of  the  newly  awak 
ened  morn  or  the  crash  of  the  storm.  "  The 
Dryad  of  the  Pine  "  bent  "  earth-yearning 
branches  "  to  give  him  loving  greeting  and 
receive  his  quick  response: 

Leaning  on  thee,  I  feel  the  subtlest  thrill 
Stir  thy  dusk  limbs,  tho'  all  the  heavens  are  still, 
And  'neath  thy  rings  of  rugged  fretwork  mark 
What  seems  a  heart-throb  muffled  in  the  dark. 

"  The  imprisoned  spirits  of  all  winds 
that  blow  "  echoed  to  his  ear  from  the  heart 
of  the  pine-cone  fallen  from  "  the  wavering 
height  of  yon  monarchal  pine." 

When  a  glorious  pine,  to  him  a  living 
soul,  falls  under  the  axe  he  hears  "  the  wail 
of  Dryads  in  their  last  distress." 

In  the  greenery  of  his  loved  and  loving 
pines,  with  memories  happy,  though 
touched  to  tender  sadness  by  the  sorrows 
that  had  come  to  the  old-time  group  of 

95 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

friends,  blessed  with  the  companionship  of 
the  two  loving  souls  who  were  dearest  to 
him  of  all  the  world,  he  sang  the  melodies 
of  his  heart  till  a  cold  hand  swept  across 
the  strings  of  his  wonderful  harp  and 
chilled  them  to  silence. 

In  his  last  year  of  earth  he  was  invited 
to  deliver  at  Vanderbilt  University  a  series 
of  lectures  on  poetry  and  literature.  Be 
fore  the  invitation  reached  him  he  had 
"  fallen  into  that  perfect  peace  that  waits 
for  all." 


THE  FLAME-BORN  POET 

HENRY  TIMROD 


'  THE  FLAME-BORN  POET  ' 

HENRY  TIMROD 

A  writer  on  Southern  poets  heads  his 
article  on  one  of  the  most  gifted  of  our 
children  of  song,  "  Henry  Timrod,  the 
Unfortunate  Singer." 

At  first  glance  the  title  may  seem  appro 
priate.  Viewed  by  the  standard  set  up  by 
the  world,  there  was  little  of  the  wine  of 
success  in  Timrod's  cup  of  life.  Bitter 
drafts  of  the  waters  of  Marah  were  served 
to  him  in  the  iron  goblet  of  Fate.  But 
he  lived.  Of  how  many  of  the  so-called 
favorites  of  Fortune  could  that  be  said? 
Through  the  mists  of  his  twilit  life,  he 
caught  glimpses  of  a  sun-radiant  morning 
of  wondrous  glory. 

Thirty  years  after  Timrod's  death  a 
Northern  critic,  writing  of  the  new  birth  of 

99 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

interest  in  Timrod's  work,  said:  "  Time  is 
the  ideal  editor."  Surely,  Editor  Time's 
blue  pencil  has  dealt  kindly  with  our  flame- 
born  poet. 

In  Charleston,  December  8,  1829,  the 
"  little  blue-eyed  boy  "  of  his  father's  verse 
first  opened  his  eyes  upon  a  world  that 
would  give  him  all  its  beauty  and  much 
of  its  sadness,  verifying  the  paternal 
prophecy : 

And  thy  full  share  of  misery 
Must    fall  in  life  on  thee ! 

In  early  childhood  he  was  destined  to  lose 
the  loving  father  to  whom  his  "  shouts  of 
joy "  were  the  sweetest  strain  in  life's 
harmony. 

Henry  Timrod  and  Paul  Hayne,  within 
a  month  of  the  same  age,  were  seat-mates 
in  school.  Writing  of  him  many  years 

later,     Hayne    tells    of    the    time    that 
100 


"  THE  FLAME-BORN  POET  •*  . 

Timrod  made  the  thrilling  discovery  that 
he  was  a  poet ;  that  being,  perhaps,  the  most 
exciting  epoch  in  any  life.  Coming  into 
school  one  morning,  he  showed  Paul  his 
first  attempt  at  verse- writing,  which  Hayne 
describes  as  "  a  ballad  of  stirring  adven 
tures  and  sanguinary  catastrophe,"  which 
he  thought  wonderful,  the  youthful  author, 
of  course,  sharing  that  conviction.  Con 
victions  are  easy  at  thirteen,  even  when  one 
has  not  the  glamour  of  the  sea  and  the 
romance  of  old  Charleston  to  prepare  the 
soul  for  their  riveting. 

Unfortunately,  the  teacher  of  that 
school  thus  honored  by  the  presence  of  two 
budding  poets  had  not  a  mind  attuned  to 
poesy.  Seeing  the  boys  communing  to 
gether  in  violation  of  the  rules  made  and 
provided  for  school  discipline,  he  promptly 
and  sharply  recalled  them  to  the  subjects 
wisely  laid  down  in  the  curriculum.  Not- 
101 


1/rtER^RY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

withstanding  this  early  discouragement, 
the  youthful  poet,  abetted  by  his  faithful 
fellow  song-bird,  persevered  in  his  erratic 
way,  and  Charleston  had  the  honor  of  being 
the  home  of  one  who  has  been  regarded  as 
the  most  brilliant  of  Southern  poets. 

When  Henry  Timrod  finished  his  course 
of  study  in  the  chilling  atmosphere  in  which 
his  poetic  ambition  first  essayed  to  put 
forth  its  tender  leaflets,  he  entered  Frank 
lin  College,  in  Athens,  the  nucleus  of  what 
is  now  the  University  of  Georgia.  A  few 
years  ago  a  visitor  saw  his  name  in  pencil 
on  a  wall  of  the  old  college.  The  "  Toombs 
oak  "  still  stood  on  the  college  grounds,  and 
it  may  be  that  its  whispering  leaves  brought 
to  the  youthful  poet  messages  of  patriotism 
which  they  had  garnered  from  the  lips  of 
the  embryonic  Georgia  politician.  Timrod 
spent  only  a  year  in  the  college,  quitting 

his  studies  partly  because  his  health  failed, 
102 


"THE  FLAME-BORN  POET' 

and  partly  because  the  family  purse  was 
not  equal  to  his  scholastic  ambition. 

Returning  to  Charleston  at  a  time  when 
that  city  cherished  the  ambition  to  become 
to  the  South  what  Boston  was  to  the  North, 
he  helped  form  the  coterie  of  writers  who 
followed  the  leadership  of  that  burly  and 
sometimes  burry  old  Mentor,  William  Gil- 
more  Simms.  The  young  poet  seems  not 
to  have  been  among  the  docile  members  of 
the  flock,  for  when  Timrod's  first  volume 
of  poems  was  published  Hayne  wrote  to 
Simms,  requesting  him  to  write  a  notice  of 
Timrod's  work,  not  that  he  (Timrod)  de 
served  it  of  Simms,  but  that  he  (Hayne) 
asked  it  of  him.  It  may  be  that  Timrod's 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  he  could  write 
poetry  and  that  Simms  could  only  try  to 
write  it  led  to  a  degree  of  youthful  assump 
tion  which  clashed  with  the  dignity  of  the 
older  man.  The  Nestor  of  Southern  lit- 

103 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

erature  seems  not  to  have  cherished  ani 
mosity,  for  he  not  only  noticed  Timrod 
favorably,  but  in  after  years,  when  the 
poet's  misfortunes  pressed  most  heavily 
upon  him,  made  every  possible  exertion  to 
give  him  practical  and  much  needed 
assistance. 

Upon  his  return  from  college,  Timrod, 
with  some  dim  fancies  concerning  a  foren 
sic  career  circling  around  the  remote  edges 
of  his  imagination,  entered  the  office  of  his 
friend,  Judge  Petigru.  The  "  irrepressible 
conflict "  between  Law  and  Poesy  that  has 
been  waged  through  the  generations  broke 
forth  anew,  and  Timrod  made  the  opposite 
choice  from  that  reached  by  Blackstone. 
Judging  from  the  character  of  the 
rhythmic  composition  in  which  the  great 
expounder  of  English  law  took  leave  of 
the  Lyric  Muse,  his  decision  was  a  judic 
ious  one.  Doubtless  that  of  our  poet  was 

104 


"  THE  FLAME-BORN  POET  ' 

equally  discreet.  When  the  Club  used  to 
gather  in  Russell's  book-shop  on  King 
Street,  Judge  Petigru  and  his  recalcitrant 
protege  had  many  pleasant  meetings,  un- 
rnarred  by  differences  as  to  the  relative  im 
portance  of  the  Rule  in  Shelley's  Case  and 
the  flight  of  Shelley's  Lark. 

Henry  Tirnrod  was  thrust  into  the  liter 
ary  life  of  Charleston  at  a  time  when  that 
life  was  most  full  of  impelling  force.  It 
was  a  Charleston  filled  with  memories  quite 
remote  from  the  poetry  and  imaginative 
literature  which  represented  life  to  the 
youthful  writers.  It  was  a  Charleston  witli 
an  imposing  background  of  history  and 
oratory,  forensic  and  legislative,  against 
which  the  poetry  and  imagination  of  the 
new-comers  glittered  capriciously,  like  the 
glimmering  of  fireflies  against  the  back 
ground  of  night,  with  swift,  uncertain 
vividness  that  suggested  the  early  extin- 
105 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

giiishing  of  those  quivering  lamps.  But 
the  heart  of  Charleston  was  kindled  with  a 
new  ambition,  and  the  new  men  brought 
promise  of  its  fulfilment. 

Others  have  given  us  a  view  of  the  liter 
ary  life  of  Charleston,  of  her  social  position, 
of  her  place  in  the  long  procession  of  his 
tory.  To  Timrod  it  was  left  to  give  us 
martial  Charleston,  "  girt  without  and  gar 
risoned  at  home,"  looking  "  from  roof  and 
spire  and  dome  across  her  tranquil  bay." 
With  him,  we  see  her  while 

Calm  as  that  second  summer  which  precedes 

The  first  fall  of  the  snow, 
In  the  broad  sunlight  of  heroic  deeds 

The  City  bides  the  foe. 

Through  his  eyes  we  look  seaward  to  where 

Dark  Sumter,  like  a  battlemented  cloud, 
Looms  o'er  the  solemn  deep. 

The  quotations  from  Henry  Timrod  found  in  this  book  are 
used  by  special  permission  of  the  B.  F.  Johnson  Publishing 
Company,  the  authorized  publishers  of  Timrod's  Poems. 

106 


«  THE  FLAME-BORN  POET  ' 

We  behold  the  Queen  City  of  the  Sea 
standing  majestically  on  the  sands,  the 
storm-clouds  lowering  darkly  over  her,  the 
distant  thunders  of  war  threatening  her, 
and  the  pale  lightnings  of  the  coming  tem 
pest  flashing  nearer, 

And    down    the    dunes    a    thousand    guns    lie 
couched, 

Unseen,  beside  the  flood — 
Like  tigers  in  some  Orient  jungle  crouched 

That  wait  and  watch  for  blood. 

We  see  her  in  those  dark  days  before  the 
plunge  into  the  darkness  has  been  taken,  as 

Meanwhile,    through    streets    still    echoing    with 

trade, 

Walk  grave  and  thoughtful  men, 
Whose  hands  may   one  day  wield  the  patriot's 

blade 

As  lightly  as  the  pen. 
107 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

Thus  he  gives  us  the  picture  of  the  beauti 
ful  city  of  his  love  as 

All  untroubled  in  her  faith,  she  waits 
The  triumph  or  the  tomb. 

Hayne  said  that  of  all  who  shared  the 
suppers  at  the  hospitable  home  of  Simms 
in  Charleston  none  perhaps  enjoyed  them 
as  vividly  as  Timrod.  He  chooses  the 
word  that  well  applies  to  Timrod's  life 
in  all  its  variations.  He  was  vivid  in  all 
that  he  did.  Being  little  of  a  talker,  he 
was  always  a  vivid  listener,  and  when  he 
spoke,  his  words  leaped  forth  like  a  flame. 

Russell's  book-shop,  where  the  Club  used 
to  spend  their  afternoons  in  pleasant  con 
versation  and  discourse  of  future  work,  was 
a  place  of  keen  interest  to  Timrod,  and 
when  their  discussions  resulted  in  the  estab 
lishment  of  Russell's  Magazine  he  was  one 

108 


"THE  FLAME-BORN  POET5 

of  the  most  enthusiastic  contributors  to  the 
ambitious  publication. 

While  Charleston  was  not  the  place  of 
what  would  be  called  Timrod's  most  suc 
cessful  life,  it  was  the  scene  in  which  he 
reached  his  highest  exemplification  of 
Browning's  definition  of  poetry:  "A  pre 
sentment  of  the  correspondence  of  the 
universe  to  the  Deity,  of  the  natural  to  the 
spiritual,  and  of  the  actual  to  the  ideal." 

In  the  environments  of  Charleston  he 
roamed  with  his  Nature-worshipping 
mother,  who  taught  him  the  beauties  of 
clouds  and  trees  and  streams  and  flowers, 
the  glory  of  the  changeful  pageantry  of 
the  sky,  the  exquisite  grace  of  the  bird  atilt 
on  a  swaying  branch.  Through  the  glow 
ing  picture  which  Nature  unfolded  before 
him  he  looked  into  the  heart  of  the  truth 
symbolized  there  and  gave  us  messages 
from  woods  and  sky  and  sea.  While  it 

109 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

may  be  said  that  a  poet  can  make  his  own 
environment,  yet  he  is  fortunate  who  finds 
his  place  where  nature  has  done  so  much  to 
fit  the  outward  scene  to  the  inward  longing. 
In  Charleston  he  met  "  Katie,  the  Fair 
Saxon,"  brown-eyed  and  with 

Entangled  in  her  golden  hair 

Some  English  sunshine,  warmth  and  air. 

He  straightway  entered  into  the  kingdom 
of  Love,  and  that  sunshine  made  a  radiance 
over  the  few  years  he  had  left  to  give  to 
love  and  art. 

In  the  city  of  his  home  he  answered  his 
own  "  Cry  to  Arms  "  when  the  "  festal 
guns  "  roared  out  their  challenge.  Had  his 
physique  been  as  strong  as  his  patriotism, 
his  sword  might  have  rivaled  his  pen  in 
reflecting  honor  upon  his  beautiful  city. 
Even  then  the  seeds  of  consumption  had 

developed,   and   he   was   discharged   from 
no 


«  THE  FLAME-BORN  POET  ' 

field  service.  Still  wishing  to  remain  in 
the  service  of  his  country,  he  tried  the  work 
of  war  correspondent,  reaching  the  front 
just  after  the  battle  of  Shiloh.  Overcome 
by  the  horrors  of  the  retreat,  he  returned 
to  Charleston,  and  was  soon  after  ap 
pointed  assistant  editor  of  the  Daily  South 
Carolinian,  published  in  Columbia.  He 
removed  to  the  capital,  where  his  prospects 
became  bright  enough  to  permit  his  mar 
riage  to  Kate  Goodwin,  the  English  girl 
to  whom  his  Muse  pays  such  glowing 
tribute. 

In  May,  1864,  Simms  was  in  Columbia, 
and  on  his  return  to  "  Woodlands  "  wrote 
to  Hayne  that  Timrod  was  in  better  health 
and  spirits  than  for  years,  saying:  "  He 
has  only  to  prepare  a  couple  of  dwarf 
essays,  making  a  single  column,  and  the 
pleasant  public  is  satisfied.  These  he  does 

so  well  that  they  have  reason  to  be  so. 
111 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

Briefly,  our  friend  is  in  a  fair  way  to  fatten 
and  be  happy." 

This  prosperity  came  to  an  end  when  the 
capital  city  fell  a  victim  to  the  fires  of  war, 
and  Timrod  returned  to  the  city  of  his 
birth,  where  for  a  time  the  publication  of 
the  South  Carolinian  was  continued,  he 
writing  editorials  nominally  for  fifteen 
dollars  a  month,  practically  for  exercise  in 
facile  expression,  as  the  small  stipend 
promised  was  never  paid.  With  the  paper, 
he  soon  returned  to  Columbia,  where  after 
a  time  he  secured  work  in  the  office  of 
Governor  Orr,  writing  to  Hayne  that  twice 
he  copied  papers  from  ten  o'clock  one 
morning  till  sunrise  of  the  next. 

With  the  close  of  the  session,  his  work 
ended,  and  in  the  spring  he  visited  Paul 
Hayne  at  Copse  Hill.  Hayne  says:  "  He 
found  me  with  my  family  established  in  a 

crazy  wooden  shanty,  dignified  as  a  cot- 
112 


"THE  FLAME-BORN  POET' 

tage,  near  the  track  of  the  main  Georgia 
railroad,  about  sixteen  miles  from  Au 
gusta."  To  Timrod,  that  "  crazy  wooden 
shanty,"  set  in  immemorial  pines  and 
made  radiant  by  the  presence  of  his  poet 
friend,  was  finer  than  a  palace.  On  that 
"  windy,  frowzy,  barren  hill,"  as  Maurice 
Thompson  called  it,  the  two  old  friends 
spent  together  the  spring  days  of  '67 — such 
days  as  lingered  in  golden  beauty  in  the 
memory  of  one  of  them  and  have  come 
down  to  us  in  immortal  verse. 

Again  in  August  of  that  year  he  visited 
Copse  Hill,  hoping  to  find  health  among 
the  pines.  Of  these  last  days  Paul  Hayne 
wrote  years  later: 

In  the  latter  summer-tide  of  this  same  year 
I  again  persuaded  him  to  visit  me.  Ah!  how 
sacred  now,  how  sad  and  sweet,  are  the  memories 
of  that  rich,  clear,  prodigal  August  of  '67 ! 

We  would  rest  on  the  hillsides,  in  the  sway- 
113 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

ing  golden  shadows,  watching  together  tlie 
Titanic  masses  of  snow-white  clouds  wluch 
floated  slowly  and  vaguely  tlirough  the  sky,  sug 
gesting  by  thedr  form,  whiteness,  and  serene 
motion,  despite  the  season,  flotillas  of  icebergs 
upon  Arctic  seas.  Like  lazzaroni  we  basked  in 
the  quiet  noons,  sunk  into  the  deptlis  of  reverie, 
or  perhaps  of  yet  more  "  charmed  sleep."  Or 
we  smoked,  conversing  lazily  between  the  puffs, 

"  Next  to  some  pine  whose  antique  roots  just 

peeped 
From  out  the  crumbling  bases  of  the  sand." 

But  the  evenings,  with  their  gorgeous  sunsets, 
"  rolling  down  like  a  chorus  "  and  the  "  gray- 
eyed  melancholy  gloaming,"  were  the  favorite 
hours  of  the  day  with  him. 

One  of  those  pines  was  especially  his 
own,  by  his  love  and  his  choice  of  its  shade 
as  a  resting  place.  Of  it  Paul  Hayne 
wrote  when  his  friend  had  passed  from  its 
shadows  for  the  last  time: 

114 


THE  FLAME-BORN  POET 


The  same  majestic  pine  is  lifted  high 

Against  the  twilight  sky, 
The  same  low,  melancholy  music  grieves 

Amid  the  topmost  leaves, 

As  when  I  watched  and  mused  and  dreamed  with 
him 

Beneath  those  shadows  dim. 

Such  dreams  we  can  dimly  imagine 
sometimes  when  we  stand  beneath  a  glori 
ous  pine  and  try  to  translate  its  whisper 
ings  into  words,  and  watch  "  the  last  rays 
of  sunset  shimmering  down,  flashed  like 
a  royal  crown."  Sometimes  we  catch 
glimpses  of  such  radiant  visions  when  we 
stand  in  the  pine  shadows  and  think,  as 
Hayne  did  so  often  after  that  beautiful 
August,  "  Of  one  who  comes  no  more." 
Under  that  stately  tree  he 

Seemed  to  drink  the  sunset  like  strong  wine 
Or,  hushed  in  trance  divine, 
115 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

Hailed  the  first  shy  and  timorous  glance  from 

far 
Of  evening's  virgin  star. 

In  all  his  years  after,  Paul  Hayne  held 
in  his  heart  the  picture  of  his  friend  with 
head  against  that  "  mighty  trunk  "  when 

The  unquiet  passion  died  from  out  hi&  eyes, 
As  lightning  from  stilled  skies. 

So  through  that  glowing  August  on 
Copse  Hill  the  two  Southern  poets  walked 
and  talked  and  built  their  shrine  to  the 
shining  Olympic  goddess  to  whom  their 
lives  were  dedicated. 

When  summer  had  wrapped  about  her 
the  purple  and  crimson  glories  of  her  bril 
liant  life  and  drifted  into  the  tomb  of  past 
things,  Timrod  left  the  friend  of  his  heart 
alone  with  the  "  soft  wind-angels "  and 
memories  of  "  that  quiet  eve  " 

116 


"  THE  FLAME-BORN  POET  ' 

When,  deeply,  thrillingly, 
He  spake  of  lofty  hopes  which  vanquish  Death ; 

And  on  his  mortal  breath 
A  language  of  immortal  meanings  hung 

That  fired  his  heart  and  tongue. 

Impelled  by  circumstances  to  leave  the 
pines  before  their  inspiring  breath  had 
given  him  of  their  life,  he  had  little 
strength  to  renew  the  battle  for  existence, 
and  of  the  sacrifice  of  his  possessions  to 
which  he  had  been  forced  to  resort  he 
writes  to  Hayne:  "We  have  eaten  two 
silver  pitchers,  one  or  two  dozen  silver 
forks,  several  sofas,  innumerable  chairs, 
and  a  huge  bedstead." 

We  should  like  to  think  of  life  as  flow 
ing  on  serenely  in  that  pretty  cottage  on 
Henderson  Street,  Columbia,  its  wide 
front  veranda  crowned  with  a  combed  roof 
supported  by  a  row  of  white  columns.  In 
its  cool  dimness  we  may  in  fancy  see  the 

117 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

nature-loving  poet  at  eventide  looking  into 
the  greenery  of  a  friendly  tree  stretching 
great  arms  lovingly  to  the  shadowy  porch. 
A  taller  tree  stands  sentinel  at  the  gate,  as 
if  to  guard  the  poet-soul  from  the  world  and 
close  it  around  with  the  beauty  that  it  loved. 
But  life  did  not  bring  him  any  more  of 
joy  or  success  than  he  had  achieved  in  the 
long  years  of  toil  and  sorrow  and  disap 
pointment,  brightened  by  the  flame  of  his 
own  genius  throwing  upon  the  dark  wall 
of  existence  the  pictures  that  imagination 
drew  with  magic  hand  upon  his  sympa 
thetic,  ever  responsive  mind.  On  the  sixth 
of  October,  after  that  month  of  iridescent 
beauty  on  Copse  Hill,  came  the  days  of 
which  he  had  written  long  before: 

As  it  purples  in  the  zenith, 

As  it  brightens  on  the  lawn, 
There  's  a  hush  of  death  about  me, 

And  a  whisper,  "  He  is  gone!" 
118 


"  THE  FLAME-BORN  POET  ' 

On  Copse  Hill,  "  Under  the  Pine,"  his 
lifelong  friend  stood  and  sorrowfully 
questioned : 

O  Tree !  have  not  his  poet-touch,  his  dreams 

So  full  of  heavenly  .gleams, 
Wrought  through  the  folded  dulness  of  thy  bark, 

And  all  thy  nature  dark 

Stirred   to   slow  throbbings,   and  the  fluttering 
fire 

Of  faint,  unknown  desire? 

Near  the  end  of  his  last  visit  he  had  told 
Paul  Hayne  that  he  did  not  wish  to  live  to 
be  old — "  an  octogenarian,  far  less  a  cen 
tenarian,  like  old  Parr."  He  hoped  that 
he  might  stay  until  he  was  fifty  or  fifty- 
five  ;  "  one  hates  the  idea  of  a  mummy, 
intellectual  or  physical."  If  those  coveted 
years  had  been  added  to  his  thirty-eight 
beautiful  ones,  a  brighter  radiance  might 
have  crowned  our  literature.  Or,  would 
the  vision  have  faded  away  with  youth? 

119 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

On  the  seventh  of  October,  1867,  Henry 
Timrod  was  laid  to  rest  in  Trinity  Church 
yard,  Columbia,  beside  his  little  Willie, 
"  the  Christmas  gift  of  God  "  that  brought 
such  divine  light  to  the  home  only  to  leave 
it  in  darkness  when  the  gift  was  recalled 
before  another  Christmas  morn  had  glad 
dened  the  world.  The  poet's  grave  is 
marked  by  a  shaft  erected  by  loving  hands, 
but  a  memorial  more  fitting  to  one  who  so 
loved  the  beautiful  is  found  in  the  waving 
grasses  and  the  fragrant  flowers  that 
Nature  spreads  for  her  lover,  and  the  winds 
of  heaven  that  breathe  soft  dirges  over  his 
lowly  mound. 

In  Washington  Square,  Charleston, 
stands  a  monument  erected  in  1901  by  the 
Timrod  Memorial  Association  of  South 
Carolina  to  the  memory  of  the  most  vivid 
poet  the  South  has  given  to  the  world. 
On  the  west  panel  is  an  inscription  which 
120 


"  THE  FLAME-BORN  POET  ' 

expresses    to    us   the   mainspring    of   his 
character : 

Through  clouds  and  through  sunshine,  in 
peace  and  in  war,  amid  the  stress  of  poverty  and 
the  storms  of  civil  strife,  his  soul  never  faltered 
and  his  purpose  never  failed.  To  his  poetic 
mission  he  was  faithful  to  the  end.  In  life  and 
in  death  he  was  "  not  disobedient  unto  the 
Heavenly  vision." 

On  the  panel  facing  the  War  Monument 
are  three  stanzas  from  his  own  beautiful 
Ode,  sung  at  the  decoration  of  Confederate 
graves  in  Magnolia  Cemetery  in  1867 — 
such  a  little  time  before  his  passing  that  it 
seems  to  have  mournful,  though  uncon 
scious,  allusion  to  his  own  early  fall  in  the 
heat  of  earth's  battle: 

Sleep  sweetly  in  your  humble  graves; 

Sleep,  martyrs  of  a  fallen  cause, 
Though  yet  no  marble  column  craves 

The  pilgrim  here  to  pause. 
121 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 

WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS 

Woodlands,  near  Midway,  the  half-way 
stop  between  Charleston  and  Augusta, 
was  a  little  kingdom  of  itself  in  the  years 
of  its  greatness  when  William  Gilmore 
Simms  was  monarch  of  the  fair  domain. 
It  was  far  from  being  a  monastery,  though 
its  master  was  known  as  "  Father  Abbot." 
The  title  had  clung  to  him  from  the  pseu 
donym  under  which  he  had  written  a  series 
of  letters  to  a  New  York  paper,  upholding 
the  view  that  Charlestonians  should  not  go 
north  on  health-seeking  vacations  when 
they  had  better  places  nearer  home,  men 
tioning  Sullivan's  Island  where  the  hos 
pitable  Fort  Moultrie  officers  "  were  good 
hands  at  drawing  a  cork."  Of  course,  he 
meant  a  trigger. 

Rather   was   Woodlands   a   bit   of   en- 


125 


<  FATHER  ABBOT ' 

WILLIAM  GILMORE  SIMMS 

Woodlands,  near  Midway,  the  half-way 
stop  between  Charleston  and  Augusta, 
was  a  little  kingdom  of  itself  in  the  years 
of  its  greatness  when  William  Gilmore 
Simms  was  monarch  of  the  fair  domain. 
It  was  far  from  being  a  monastery,  though 
its  master  was  known  as  "  Father  Abbot." 
The  title  had  clung  to  him  from  the  pseu 
donym  under  which  he  had  written  a  series 
of  letters  to  a  New  York  paper,  upholding 
the  view  that  Charlestonians  should  not  go 
north  on  health-seeking  vacations  when 
they  had  better  places  nearer  home,  men 
tioning  Sullivan's  Island  where  the  hos 
pitable  Fort  Moultrie  officers  "  were  good 
hands  at  drawing  a  cork."  Of  course,  he 
meant  a  trigger. 

Rather   was   Woodlands   a   bit   of   en- 

125 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

chanted  forest  cut  from  an  old  black-letter 
legend,  in  which  one  half  expected  to  meet 
mediaeval  knights  on  foaming  steeds — 
every-day  folk  ride  jogging  horses- 
threading  their  way  through  the  mysterious 
forest  aisles  in  search  of  those  romantic 
adventures  which  were  necessary  to  give 
knights  of  that  period  an  excuse  for  exist 
ence.  It  chanced,  however,  that  the  only 
knights  known  to  Woodlands  were  the  old- 
time  friends  of  its  master  and  the  youthful 
writers  who  looked  to  "  Father  Abbot " 
for  literary  guidance. 

Having  welcomed  his  guests  with  the 
warmth  and  urbanity  which  made  him  a 
most  enjoyable  comrade,  Father  Abbot 
would  disperse  them  to  seek  entertainment 
after  the  manner  agreeable  to  them.  For 
the  followers  of  old  Isaac  Walton  there 
was  prime  fishing  in  the  Edisto  River,  that 
"  sweet  little  river  "  that  ripples  melodi- 

126 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


ously  through  "  Father  Abbot's  "  pages. 
To  hunters  the  forest  offered  thrilling 
occupation.  For  the  pleasure  rider  smooth, 
white,  sandy  bridle-paths  led  in  silvery 
curves  through  forests  of  oak  or  pine  to 
the  most  delightful  of  Nowheres. 

Having  put  each  guest  into  the  line  of 
his  fancy,  the  master  of  Woodlands  would 
betake  himself  to  his  library  to  write  his 
thirty  pages,  the  daily  stint  he  demanded 
from  the  loom  of  his  imagination.  Some 
times  he  had  a  companion  in  Paul  Hayne 
who,  not  so  much  given  to  outdoor  life  as 
many  of  the  frequenters  of  Woodlands, 
liked  to  sit  in  the  library,  weaving  some 
poetic  vision  of  his  own  or  watching  the 
flight  of  the  tireless  pen  across  the  page. 

By  and  by  the  pen  would  drop  upon  the 
desk,  its  task  finished  for  that  morning,  and 
the  worker  would  look  up  with  an  air  of 
surprise  at  becoming  aware  of  his  com- 

127 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

panion  and  say:  "  Near  dinner  time,  old 
boy.  What  do  you  say  to  a  sherry  and 
soda? "  As  there  was  only  one  thing  to 
be  said  to  a  sherry  and  soda,  this  was  the 
signal  for  repairing  to  the  dining  room.  By 
the  time  the  sherry  and  soda  sparkled  hos 
pitable  welcome  the  sportsmen  returned 
and  after  doing  justice  to  the  genius  of  the 
host  in  mixed  drinks,  they  were  seated 
around  a  generous  table,  most  of  the  good 
things  with  which  it  was  laden  having 
come  from  the  waters  and  fields  and  vines 
of  Woodlands.  For  if  a  world-wide  war 
had  closed  all  the  harbors  of  earth  Wood 
lands  could  still  have  offered  luxurious 
banquets  to  its  guests.  The  host  beguiled 
the  time  with  anecdotes,  of  which  he  had 
an  unfailing  store  that  never  lost  a  point 
in  his  telling,  or  declaimed  poetry,  of  which 
his  retentive  memory  held  an  inexhaustible 
collection. 

128 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


The  feast  was  followed  by  cigars,  Simms 
having  begun  to  smoke  of  late  years  to  dis 
courage  a  tendency  to  stoutness.  Then  all 
would  join  in  the  diversions  of  the  after 
noon,  which  sometimes  led  to  the  "  Edge 
of  the  Swamp,"  a  gruesome  place  which 
the  poet  of  Woodlands  had  celebrated  in 
his  verse.  Here 

Cypresses, 

Each  a  great,  ghastly  giant,  eld  and  gray 
Stride  o'er  the  dusk,  dank  tract. 

Around  the  sombre  cypress  trees  coiled 

Fantastic  vines 

That    swing    like    monstrous     serpents    in    the 
sun. 

There  are  living  snakes  in  the  swamp,  yet 
more  terrifying  than  the  viny  serpents  that 
circle  the  cypresses,  and 

129 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

The  steel -jaw'd  cayman  from  his  grassy  slope 
Slides  silent  to  the  slimy,  green  abode 
Which  is  his  province. 

Now  and  then  a  bit  of  sunny,  poetic  life 
touches  upon  the  gloomy  place,  for 

See!  a  butterfly 

That,  travelling  all  the  day,  has  counted  climes 
Only  by  flowers     .     .     . 
Lights  on  the  monster's  brow. 

An  insecure  perch  for  the  radiant  wan 
derer.  The  inhospitable  saurian  dives  with 
embarrassing  suddenness  and  dips  the  airy 
visitor  into  the  "  rank  water."  The  butter 
fly  finds  no  charm  in  the  gloomy  place  and 
flies  away,  which  less  ethereal  wanderers 
might  likewise  be  fain  to  do.  Now  and 
then  the  stillness  that  reigned  over  that 
home  of  malign  things  was  broken  by  the 
sound  of  a  boat-horn  on  a  lumber  raft  float 
ing  down  the  Edisto. 

130 


"  FATHER  ABBOT 


A  song  written  by  Simms  chants  the 
charms  of  a  grapevine  swing  in  the  festoons 
of  which  half  a  dozen  guests  could  be 
seated  at  once,  all  on  different  levels,  book 
in  one  hand,  leaving  the  other  free  to  reach 
up  and  gather  the  clusters  of  grapes  as  they 
read.  After  supper  they  sat  on  the  portico, 
from  which  they  looked  through  a  leafy 
archway  formed  by  the  meeting  of  the 
branches  of  magnificent  trees,  and  dis 
cussed  literature  and  metaphysics. 

The  Christmas  guests  at  Woodlands 
would  be  awakened  in  early  morning  by  the 
sound  of  voice  and  banjo  and,  looking 
from  their  windows,  could  see  the  master 
distributing  gifts  to  his  seventy  dusky  ser 
vitors.  In  the  evenings  host  and  guests 
met  in  the  spacious  dining  room  where 
Simms  would  brew  a  punch  of  unparalleled 
excellence,  he  being  as  famous  for  the  con 
coction  of  that  form  of  gayety  as  was  his 

131 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

friend,  Jamison,  down  the  river,  for  the 
evolution  of  the  festive  cocktail. 

Life  flowed  on  pleasantly  at  Woodlands 
from  October  till  May  in  those  idyllic  years 
before  death  had  made  a  graveyard  of  the 
old  home  and  fire  had  swept  away  the  beau 
tiful  mansion. 

William  Gilmore  Simms  first  opened 
his  eyes  upon  the  world  of  men  in  Charles 
ton,  at  a  time  when  to  be  properly  born  in 
Charleston  meant  to  be  born  to  the  purple. 
William  Gilmore,  alas !  did  not  inherit  that 
imperial  color.  He  sprang  from  the  good 
red  earth,  whence  comes  the  vigor  of  hu 
manity,  and  dwelt  in  the  rugged  atmos 
phere  of  toil  which  the  Charleston  eye  could 
never  penetrate.  Politically,  the  City  by 
the  Sea  led  the  van  in  the  hosts  of  Democ 
racy  ;  ethically,  she  remained  far  in  the  rear 
with  the  Divine  Right  of  Kings  and  the 
Thirty-Nine  Articles  of  Aristocracy. 

133 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


So  Charleston  took  little  note  of  the  boy 
whose  father  failed  in  trade  and  fared  forth 
to  fight  British  and  Indians  under  Old 
Hickory  and  to  wander  in  that  far  South 
west  known  as  Mississippi  to  ascertain 
whether  that  remote  frontier  might  offer  a 
livelihood  to  the  unfortunate.  The  small 
William  Gilmore,  left  in  the  care  of  his 
grajridmother,  was  apprenticed  to  a  drug 
gist  and  became  a  familiar  figure  on  the 
streets  of  Charleston  as  he  came  and  went 
on  his  round  of  errands.  Small  wonder 
that  the  Queen  of  the  Sea,  having  swal 
lowed  his  pills  and  powders  in  those  early 
days,  had  little  taste  for  his  literary  out 
put  in  after  years. 

In  Charleston  he  not  only  learned  the 
drug  business,  but  took  his  first  course  in 
the  useful  art  of  deception,  reading  and 
writing  verses  by  the  light  of  a  candle  con 
cealed  in  a  box,  to  hide  its  rays  from  his 

133 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

thrifty  grandmother,  who  was  adverse  not 
only  to  the  waste  of  candles  but  to  the 
squandering  of  good  sleep-time. 

Fortunately,  she  had  no  objection  to 
furnishing  him  with  entertainment  in  off 
hours.  For  the  material  of  much  of  his 
work  in  after  life  was  he  indebted  to  the 
war  stories  and  ancient  traditions  that  she 
told  her  eager  little  grandson  in  those 
'prentice  days.  But  for  her  olden  tales, 
the  romances  of  Revolutionary  South  Car 
olina  and  the  shivery  fascination  of  "  Dis 
mal  Castle  "  might  have  been  unknown  to 
future  readers. 

All  the  region  around  Charleston,  so  rich 
in  historic  memories,  was  an  inspiration  to 
the  future  romance  writer.  The  aged  trees 
festooned  with  heavy  gray  moss  lent  him 
visions  of  the  past  to  reappear  in  many  a 
volume.  In  his  boat  in  Charleston  harbor, 
and  on  the  sands  looking  out  over  the  ocean, 

134 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


he  gathered  that  collection  of  sea  pictures 
which  adorned  his  prose  and  verse  in  the   y 
years  to  come. 

Over  on  Morris  Island  glowed  the 
Charleston  light,  "  the  pale,  star-like  bea 
con,  set  by  the  guardian  civilization  on  the 
edges  of  the  great  deep."  Lying  on  the 
shore  he  watched  "  the  swarthy  beauty, 
Night,  enveloped  in  dark  mantle,  passing 
with  all  her  train  of  starry  servitors;  even 
as  some  queenly  mourner,  followed  by 
legions  of  gay  and  brilliant  courtiers,  glides 
slowly  and  mournfully  in  sad  state  and 
solemnity  on  a  duteous  pilgrimage  to  some 
holy  shrine."  He  saw  "  over  the  watery 
waste  that  sad,  sweet,  doubtful  light,  such 
as  Spenser  describes  in  the  cathedral  wood : 
'  A  little  glooming  light,  most  like  a 
shade.' '  Drifting  about  in  his  boat  he 
might  pass  Long  Island,  where  in  1776  the 
ocean  herself  fought  for  Charleston,  inter- 


136 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

posing  an  impassable  barrier  to  the  ad- 
rance  of  Sir  Henry  Clinton. 

Wliile  sea  and  shore  and  sky  and  earth 
were  giving  him  of  their  best,  his  father 
came  back  with  innumerable  stories  of  ad 
venture  that  would  of  themselves  have  set 
up  a  young  romancer  in  business.  Having 
talked  his  mind  dry  of  experiences  he  re 
turned  to  Mississippi  to  make  another  col 
lection  of  thrilling  tales,  leaving  William 
Gilmore,  Jr.,  with  a  mental  outlook  upon 
life  which  the  glories  of  Charleston  could 
never  have  opened  to  him. 

Drugs,  considered  as  a  lifelong  pursuit, 
did  not  appeal  to  the  youth  who  had  been 
writing  verses  ever  since  he  had  arrived 
at  the  age  of  eight  years  and  now  held  a 
place  in  the  poet's  corner  of  a  Charleston 

paper.    He  went  into  the  law  office  of  his 

.  ~ 

friend,    Charles    E.    Carroll,    where    his 

perusal    of    Blackstone    was    interspersed 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


with  reading  poetry  and  writing  Byronic 
verses. 

While  thus  variously  engaged  he  re 
ceived  an  invitation  to  visit  his  father  in 
the  wilds  of  Mississippi,  a  call  to  which  his 
adventurous  spirit  gave  willing  response. 
Were  there  not  Indians  and  other  wild 
things  and  the  choicest  assortment  of  the 
odds  and  ends  of  humanity  out  there,  just 
waiting  to  be  made  useful  as  material  for 
the  pen  of  an  ambitious  romancer? 
Through  untrodden  forests  he  rode  in  a 
silence  broken  only  by  his  horse's  feet  and  uy^ 
the  howl  of  wolves  in  the  distance.  To  all 
the  new  views  of  the  world  he  kept  open  the 
windows  of  his  mind  and  they  were  trans 
mitted  to  his  readers  in  the  years  to  come. 
If  he  did  not  sleep  with  head  pillowed  upon 
the  grave  of  one  of  De  Soto's  faithful  fol 
lowers,  he  at  least  thought  he  did,  and  the 
fancy  served  him  as  the  theme  of  verse. 

137 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 


And  those  varying  types  of  human  nature 
and  beast  nature — do  they  not  all  appear 
again  upon  the  printed  page? 

When  the  end  of  his  visit  came  his 
father  pleaded: 

"Do  not  think  of  Charleston.     What- 

er  your  talents  they  will  there  be  poured 
out  like  water  on  the  sands.  Charleston! 
I  know  it  only  as  a  place  of  tombs." 

There  came  a  time  when  he,  too,  knew  it 
only  as  a  place  of  tombs.  Just  now  he 
knew  it  as  the  home  of  the  Only  Girl  in  the 
world,  so — what  was  the  use?  And  then, 
Charleston  is  born  into  the  blood  of  all  her 
sons,  whether  she  recognizes  them  or  not. 
It  is  better  to  be  a  door-keeper  in  Charles 
ton  than  to  dwell  in  the  most  gorgeous 
tents  of  outside  barbarians.  So  he  who  was 
born  to  the  Queen  City  would  hang  on  to 
the  remotest  hem  of  her  trailing  robe  at  the 
imminent  risk  of  having  his  brains  dashed 

138 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


out  on  the  cobble-stones  as  she  swept  along 
her  royal  way,  rather  than  sit  comfortably 
upon  velvet-cushioned  thrones  in  a  place 
unknown  to  her  regal  presence.  Simms 
came  back  to  his  native  city  with  her  "  un 
sociable  houses  which  rose  behind  walls, 
shutting  in  beautiful  gardens  that  it  would 
have  been  a  sacrilege  to  let  the  public 
enjoy." 

Soon  after  his  return  he  was  admitted  to  ^J^ 
the  bar  and  proved  his  forensic  prowess  by  -Jt* 
earning  $600  in  the  first  year  of  his  prac- 
tice,  a  degree  of  success  which  enabled  him 
to  unite  his  destiny  with  that  of  the  Only 
Girl,  and  begin  housekeeping  in  Summer- 
ville,  a  suburban  village  where  living  was 
cheap.  For,  though  "  Love  gives  itself  and 
is  not  bought,"  there  are  other  essentials  of 
existence  which  are  not  so  lavish  with 
themselves. 

The  pen-fever  had  seized  upon  Simms 

139 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

with  great  virulence  and  he  followed 
his  fate.  Soon  after  his  return  from 
Mississippi,  General  Charles  Coates  Pinck- 
ney  died  and  Simms  wrote  the  memorial 
poem  for  him.  When  LaFayette  visited 
Charleston  the  pen  of  Simms  was  called 
upon  to  do  suitable  honor  to  the  great  occa 
sion.  Such  periodical  attacks  naturally  re 
sulted  in  a  chronic  condition.  Charleston 
was  the  scene  of  his  brief,  though  not 
wholly  unsuccessful,  career  as  a  play 
wright.  In  Charleston  he  edited. the  Daily 
Gazette  in  the  exciting  times  of  Nullifica- 
on,  taking  with  all  the  strength  that  was 
in  him  the  unpopular  side  of  the  burning 
question.  In  the  doorway  of  the  Gazette 
office  he  stood  defiantly  as  the  procession  of 
Xullifiers  came  down  the  street,  evidently 
with  hostile  intentions  toward  the  belliger 
ent  editor.  Seeing  his  courageous  attitude 

140 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


the  enthusiasts  became  good-natured  and 
contented  themselves  with  marching  by, 
giving  three  cheers  for  their  cause. 

In  that  famous  bookshop,  Russell's,  on 
King  Street  he  was  accustomed  to  meet  in 
the  afternoons  with  the  youthful  writers 

who  looked  upon  him  as  their  natural  born 

. 

leader.     In  his  "  Wigwam,"  as  he  called 

his  Charleston  home,  he  welcomed  his  fol 
lowers  to  evenings  of  brightness  that  were 
like  stars  in  their  memory  through  many 
after  years  of  darkness.  When  he  made  his 
home  at  Woodlands  he  often  came  to  the 
"  Wigwam  "  to  spend  a  night,  calling  his 
young  disciples  in  for  an  evening  of  enter 
tainment.  His  powerful  voice  would  be 
heard  ringing  out  in  oratory  and  declama 
tion  so  that  neighbors  blocks  away  would 
say  to  Hayne  or  Timrod  next  morning, 
"  I  noticed  that  you  had  Simms  with  you 

141 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

last  night."  In  1860  the  "  Wigwam  "  was 
accidentally  burned. 

At  Woodlands,  Simms  awaited  the  com 
ing  of  the  war  which  he  had  predicted  for  a 
number  of  years.  There  he  was  when  the 
battle  of  Fredericksburg  filled  him  with 
triumphant  joy,  and  he  saw  in  fancy 
"  Peace  with  her  beautiful  rainbow  plucked 
from  the  bosom  of  the  storm  and  spread 
from  east  to  west,  from  north  to  south,  over 
all  the  sunny  plains  and  snowy  heights." 
Unfortunately,  his  radiant  fancy  wrought 
in  baseless  visions  and  the  fires  of  the 
storm  had  burned  away  that  brilliant  rain 
bow  before  Peace  came,  as  a  mourning 
dove  with  shadowy  wings  hovering  over  a 
Nation's  grave. 

In  May,  1864,  Simms  went  to  Columbia 
and  was  there  when  the  town  was  destroyed 
by  fire,  the  house  in  which  he  was  staying 
being  saved  by  his  presence  therein.  "  You 

149 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


belong  to  the  whole  Union,"  said  an  officer, 
placing  a  guard  around  the  dwelling  to 
protect  the  sturdy  writer  who  counted  his 
friends  all  over  the  Nation.  He  said  to 
friends  who  sympathized  with  him  over  his 
losses,  "  Talk  not  to  me  about  my  losses 
when  the  State  is  lost." 

Simms  describes  the  streets  of  Columbia 
as  "  wide  and  greatly  protected  by  umbra 
geous  trees  set  in  regular  order,  which  dur 
ing  the  vernal  season  confer  upon  the  city 
one  of  its  most  beautiful  features." 

The  Daily  South  Carolinian  was  sent  to 
Charleston  to  save  it  from  destruction.  Its 
editors,  Julian  Selby  and  Henry  Timrod, 
remained  in  the  office  on  the  south  side  of 
Washington  Street  near  Main,  where  they 
prepared  and  sent  out  a  daily  bulletin 
while  bomb-shells  fell  around  them,  until 
their  labors  were  ended  by  the  burning  of 
the  building. 

143 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

From  the  ashes  of  the  Carolinian  arose 
the  Phoenix  and  Simms  was  its  editor 
through  its  somewhat  brief  existence. 
Selby  relates  that  Simms  offended  General 
Hartwell  and  was  summoned  to  trial  at  the 
General's  headquarters  on  the  corner  of 
Bull  and  Gervais  Streets.  The  result  of 
the  trial  was  an  invitation  for  the  defend 
ant  to  a  sumptuous  luncheon  and  a  ride 
home  in  the  General's  carriage  accompan 
ied  by  a  basket  of  champagne  and  other 
good  things.  The  next  day  the  Gen 
eral  told  a  friend  that  if  Mr.  Simms  was 
a  specimen  of  a  South  Carolina  gen 
tleman  he  would  not  again  enter  into  a 
tilt  with  one.  "  He  outtalked  me,  out- 
drank  me,  and  very  clearly  and  politely 
showed  me  that  I  lacked  proper  respect 
for  the  aged." 

The  Phoenix  promptly  sank  back  into  its 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


ashes  and  Simms  returned  to  Charleston 
to  a  life  of  toil  and  struggle,  not  only  for 
his  own  livelihood  but  to  help  others  bear 
the  burden  of  existence  that  was  very  heavy 
in  Charleston  immediately  succeeding  the 
war.  Timrod  wrote  to  him,  "  Somehow  or 
other,  you  always  magnetize  me  on  to  a 
little  strength." 

In  1866  Simms  visited  Paul  Hayne  at 
Copse  Hill,  the  shrine  to  which  many  foot 
steps  were  turned  in  the  days  when  the  poet 
and  his  little  family  made  life  beautiful 
on  that  pine-clad  summit.  Hayne  wel 
comed  his  guest  with  joy  and  with  sor 
row — joy  to  behold  again  the  face  of  his 
old  friend;  sorrow  to  see  it  lined  with  the 
pain  and  losses  of  the  years. 

Of  all  their  old  circle,  Simms  was  the  one 
whose  wreck  was  the  most  disastrous.  He 
had  possessed  so  many  of  the  things  which 
make  life  desirable  that  his  loss  had  left 

145 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

him  as  the  storm  leaves  the  ruined  ship 
which,  in  the  days  of  its  magnificence,  had 
ridden  the  waves  with  the  greatest  pride. 
The  fortnight  in  Copse  Hill  was  the  first 
relief  from  toil  that  had  come  to  him  since 
death  and  fire  and  defeat  had  done  their 
worst  upon  him.  His  biographer  says, 
;'  He  was  as  eager  as  ever  to  pass  the  night 
in  profitless,  though  pleasant,  discussions 
when  he  should  have  been  trying  to  regain 
his  strength  through  sleep."  To  a  later 
visitor  Paul  Hayne  showed  a  cherished 
pine  log  on  which  were  inscribed  the  names 
of  Simms  and  Timrod. 

Upon  the  return  of  Simms  he  wrote  to 
his  friend  at  Copse  Hill  that  no  language 
could  describe  the  suffering  of  Charleston. 
He  said  that  the  picture  of  Irving,  given 
him  by  Hayne,  served  a  useful  purpose  in 
helping  to  cover  the  bomb-shell  holes  still 
in  his  walls.  "  For  the  last  three  years," 

146 


"  FATHER  ABBOT  " 


he  writes,  "  I  have  written  till  two  in  the  "^ 
morning.  Does  not  this  look  like  suicide?  " 
He  mentions  the  fact  that  he  shares  with  his 
two  sons  his  room  in  which  he  sleeps,  works, 
writes  and  studies,  and  is  "  cabin'd,  cribbed, 
confined  " — "  I  who  have  had  such  ample 
range  before,  with  a  dozen  rooms  and  a 
house  range  for  walking,  in  bad  weather, 
of  134  feet."  The  old  days  were  very  fair 
as  seen  through  the  heavy  clouds  that  had 
gathered  around  the  Master  of  Woodlands.  / 

In  1870,  June  llth,  the  bell  of  Saint 
Michael's  tolled  the  message  that  Charles 
ton's  most  distinguished  son  had  passed 
away.  His  funeral  was  in  Saint  Paul's. 
He  was  buried  in  Magnolia  Cemetery,  at 
the  dedication  of  which  twenty-one  years 
earlier  he  had  read  the  dedication  poem. 
The  stone  above  him  bears  simply  the 
name,  "  Simms." 

147 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES   OF   DIXIE 

On  the  Battery  in  Charleston  a  monu 
ment  commemorates  the  broken  life  of  one 
who  gave  of  his  best  to  the  city  of  his  home 
and  his  love.  Verily  might  he  say:  I  asked 
for  bread  and  you  gave  me  a  stone. 


"UNCLE  REMUS" 

JOEL  CHANDLER  HARRIS 


"  UNCLE  REMUS  " 

7 

JOEL  CHANDLER  HARRIS 

Seeing  the  name  of  Joel  Chandler  Har 
ris,  many  people  might  have  to  stop  and 
reflect  a  moment  before  recalling  exactly 
what  claim  that  gentleman  had  upon  the 
attention  of  the  reader.  "  Uncle  Remus  " 
brings  before  the  mind  at  once  a  whole 
world  of  sunlight  and  fun,  with  not  a  few 
grains  of  wisdom  planted  here  and  there. 
The  good  old  fun-loving  Uncle  has  put 
many  a  rose  and  never  a  thorn  into  life's 
flower-garden. 

Being  in  Atlanta  some  years  ago,  when 
Mr.  Harris  was  on  the  editorial  staff  of 
the  Constitution,  I  called  up  the  office  and 
asked  if  I  might  speak  to  him.  The  gentle 
man  who  answered  my  call  replied  that 
Mr.  Harris  was  not  in,  adding  the  informa 
tion  that  if  he  were  he  would  not  talk 

151 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

through  the  telephone.  I  asked  what  time 
I  should  be  likely  to  find  him  in  the  office. 

"He  will  be  in  this  afternoon,  but  I  fear 
that  he  would  not  see  you  if  you  were  the 
angel  Gabriel,"  was  the  discouraging  reply. 

"  I  am  not  the  angel  Gabriel,"  I  said. 
"  Tell  him  that  I  am  a  lady— Mrs.  Pickett 
—and  that  I  should  like  very  much  to  see 
him." 

"  If  you  are  a  lady,  and  Mrs.  Pickett,  I 
fear  that  he  will  vanish  and  never  be 
found  again." 

Notwithstanding  the  discouragements,  I 
was  permitted  to  call  that  afternoon  in  the 
hope  that  the  obdurate  Uncle  Remus 
might  graciously  consent  to  see  me.  I 
found  him  in  his  office  in  the  top  story  of 
the  building,  an  appropriate  place  to  avoid 
being  run  to  covert  by  the  public,  but  in 
convenient  because  of  the  embarrassment 
which  might  result  from  dropping  out  of 

159 


"UNCLE  REMUS 


the  window  if  he  should  have  the  misfor 
tune  to  be  cornered.  To  say  that  I  was 
received  might  be  throwing  too  much  of  a 
glamour  over  the  situation.  At  least,  I 
was  not  summarily  ejected,  nor  treated  to 
a  dissolving  view  of  Uncle  Remus  disap 
pearing  in  the  distance,  so  I  considered  my 
self  fortunate.  I  told  him  that  I  had  called 
up  by  telephone  that  morning  to  speak  to 
him. 

"  I  never  talk  through  the  telephone," 
he  said.  "  I  do  not  like  to  talk  in  a  hole. 
I  look  into  a  man's  eyes  when  I  talk  to 
him." 

When  Uncle  Remus  was  fairly  run  to 
earth  and  could  not  escape,  he  was  quite 
human  in  his  attitude  toward  his  caller; 
his  only  fault  being  that  he  was  prone  to 
talk  of  his  visitor's  work  rather  than  his 
own,  and  a  question  that  would  seem  to 
lead  up  to  any  personal  revelation  on  his 

153 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

part  would  result  in  so  strong  an  indication 
of  a  desire  for  flight  that  the  conversation 
would  be  directed  long  distances  away 
from  Br'er  Rabbit  and  the  Tar  Baby.  He 
was  a  born  story-teller,  and  had  not  the 
made  author's  owl-like  propensity  to  perch 
upon  high  places  and  hoot  his  wisdom  to 
the  passing  crowd.  The  expression  "  lit 
erary  "  as  applied  to  him  filled  him  with 
surprise.  Pie  called  himself  an  "  accidental 
author  " ;  said  he  had  never  had  an  oppor 
tunity  of  acquiring  style,  and  probably 
should  not  have  taken  advantage  of  it  if  he 
had.  He  was  always  as  much  astonished 
by  his  success  as  other  people  are  by  their 
failures. 

I  met  him  once  at  a  Confederate  reunion 
in  Atlanta,  where  I  took  my  little  grand 
children,  who  had  been  brought  up  on 
Uncle  Remus,  to  see  him.  Having  heard 

154 


"UNCLE  REMUS 


their  beauty  praised,  he  cautioned  them  not 
to  think  too  much  of  their  looks,  telling 
them  that  appearance  was  of  little  conse 
quence.  He  gave  each  of  them  a  coin,  say 
ing,  "  I  don't  believe  in  giving  money  to 
boys;  I  believe  in  their  working  for  it." 

"Well,"  said  little  George,  "haven't 
we  earned  it  listening  to  Uncle  Remus?  " 

"  If  that  is  so,  I  'm  afraid  I  have  n't 
money  enough  to  pay  you  what  I  owe  you." 

He  was  at  ease  and  natural  and  like 
other  people  with  children.  He  invited 
them  to  come  to  his  farm  'and  see  the 
flowers  and  trees,  telling  them  how  his 
home  received  the  name  of  "  The  Wren's 
Nest."  As  he  sat  one  morning  on  the 
veranda,  he  saw  a  wren  building  a  nest  on 
his  letter-box  by  the  gate.  When  the  post 
man  came  he  went  out  and  asked  him  to 
deliver  the  mail  at  the  door,  to  avoid  dis 
turbing  Madam  Wren's  preparations  for 

155 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

housekeeping.  The  postman  was  faithful, 
and  the  Wren  family  had  a  prosperous  and 
happy  home. 

*  You  must  never  steal  an  egg  from  a 
nest,"  he  told  the  boys.  Curving  one  hand 
into  an  imitation  nest  holding  an  imaginary 
egg,  he  hovered  over  it  with  the  other  hand, 
rubbing  it  gently,  explaining  to  the  boys, 
who  watched  him  with  absorbing  interest, 
how  the  egg  would  change  to  a  beautiful 
fluff  of  feathers  and  music,  and  after  a 
while  would  fly  away  among  the  trees  and 
fill  the  woods  with  sweet  sounds.  "  If  you 
destroy  the  egg,  you  kill  all  that  beauty  and 
music,  and  there  will  be  no  little  bird  to  sit 
on  the  tree  and  sing  to  you."  The  boys  as 
sured  him  that  they  had  never  taken  an  egg, 
nor  even  so  much  as  looked  into  the  nest, 
because  some  birds  will  leave  their  nests  if 
you  just  look  into  them. 
At  the  reception  given  to  Mrs.  Jackson, 

156 


JOEL    CHANDLER   HARRIS 
At  Home 


"  UNCLE  REMUS  " 


Mrs.  Stuart,  Winnie  Davis,  and  myself, 
Mr.  Harris  was  invited  to  stand  in  line, 
but  declined.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
imagine  him  as  standing  with  a  receiving 
party,  shaking  hands  with  the  public.  He 
was  asked  to  speak,  but  that  was  even  less 
to  be  expected.  The  nearest  he  ever  came 
to  making  a  speech  was  once  when  he  sat 
upon  the  platform  while  his  friend,  Henry 
O.  Grady,  was  addressing  a  large  assem 
blage  with  all  that  eloquence  for  which  he 
was  noted.  When  he  had  finished,  the  call 
for  "  Harris  "  came  with  great  volume  and 
persistency.  He  arose  and  said,  "  I  am 
coming,"  walked  down  from  the  platform 
and  was  lost  in  the  crowd. 

Uncle  Remus  wrote  his  stories  at  "  Snap 
Bean  Farm,"  in  West  End,  a  suburb  of 
Atlanta.  They  filled  his  evenings  with 
pleasure  after  the  office  grind  was  over. 
If  no  one  but  himself  had  ever  seen  them, 

157 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

he  would  have  been  as  happy  in  the  work 
as  he  was  when  the  public  was  delighting  in 
the  adventures  of  Br'er  Wolf  and  Br'er 
B'ar.  In  that  cosy  home  the  early  evening 
was  given  to  the  children,  and  the  later 
hours  to  recording  the  tales  which  had 
amused  them  through  the  twilight. 

A  home  it  was,  not  only  to  him  but  to  all 
who  came  in  friendship  to  see  him  in  his 
quiet  retreat.  There  was  no  room  in  it  for 
those  whom  curiosity  brought  there  to 
see  the  man  of  letters  or  to  do  honor  to  a 
lion.  The  lionizing  of  Uncle  Remus  was 
the  one  ambition  impossible  of  achievement 
in  the  literary  world.  For  everything  else 
that  touched  upon  the  human,  the  vine- 
embowered,  tree-shaded  house  on  Gordon 
Street  opened  hospitable  doors. 

Joel  Chandler  Harris  \vas  born  in 
Eatonton,  the  county-seat  of  Putnam 

158 


"UNCLE  REMUS 


County,  Georgia,  and  in  his  early  days 
attended  the  Eatonton  Academy,  where  he 
received  all  the  academic  training  he  ever 
had.  His  vitally  helpful  education  was 
gained  in  the  wider  and  deeper  school  of 
life,  and  few  have  been  graduated  there 
from  with  greater  honors. 

At  six  years  of  age  he  had  the  good  for 
tune  to  encounter  "  The  Vicar  of  Wake- 
field,"  than  whom,  it  is  safe  to  assert,  no 
boy  of  such  tender  years  had  ever  a  better 
and  more  inspiring  friend.  This  beloved 
clerical  gentleman  led  young  Joel  into  a 
charmed  land  of  literature,  in  which  he 
dwelt  all  his  life. 

In  the  post-office  at  Eatonton  was  an  old 
green  sofa,  very  much  the  worse  for  wear, 
which  yet  offered  a  comfortable  lounging 
place  for  the  boy  Joel,  adapted  to  his  kit 
tenish  taste  for  curling  up  in  quiet  retreats. 
There  he  would  spend  hours  in  reading  the 

159 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

newspapers  that  came  to  the  office.  In 
one  of  them  he  found  an  announcement  of 
a  new  periodical  to  be  published  by  Colonel 
Turner  on  his  plantation  nine  miles  from 
Eatonton.  In  connection  with  this  an 
nouncement  was  an  advertisement  for  an 
office  boy.  It  occurred  to  the  future 
"  Uncle  Remus,"  then  twelve  years  old, 
that  this  might  open  a  way  for  him.  He 
wrote  to  Colonel  Turner,  and  a  few  days 
later  the  Colonel  drove  up  to  town  to  take 
the  unknown  boy  to  his  plantation.  So 
beside  the  editor  Joel  Chandler  Harris 
rode  to  the  office  of  the  Countryman  and  to 
his  happy  destiny.  It  has  been  said  that 
but  for  the  Turner  plantation  there  would 
have  been  no  Uncle  Remus,  but  what  would 
have  become  of  the  possibilities  of  that 
good  old  darky  if  the  little  Joel  had  not 
enjoyed  the  acquaintance  of  a  good- 
natured  post-master  who  permitted  him  to 

160 


«  UNCLE  REMUS  " 


occupy  the  old  green  sofa  and  browse 
among  the  second-class  mail  of  the  Eaton- 
ton  community? 

Surely  there  was  never  a  better  school 
for  the  development  of  a  budding  author 
than  the  office  of  the  Countryman,  and  the 
well-selected  library  in  the  home  of  its 
editor,  and  the  great  wildwood  that  en 
vironed  the  plantation. 

Best  of  all,  there  were  the  "  quarters," 
where  "  Uncle  Remus  "  conducted  a  whole 
university  of  history  and  zoology  and  phi 
losophy  and  ethics  and  laughter  and  tears. 
Down  in  the  cabins  at  night  the  printer's 
boy  would  sit  and  drink  in  such  stores  of 
wit  and  wisdom  as  could  not  lie  unex 
pressed  in  his  facile  mind,  and  the  world 
is  the  richer  for  every  moment  he  spent 
in  that  primitive,  child-mind  community, 
with  its  ancient  traditions  that  made  it 
one  with  the  beginning  of  time. 

161 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

At  times  he  joined  a  'coon  hunt,  and  with 
a  gang  of  boys  and  a  pack  of  hounds  chased 
the  elusive  little  animal  through  the  night, 
returning  home  triumphant  in  the  dawn. 
He  hunted  rabbits  in  the  woods,  and, 
maybe,  became  acquainted  with  the  char 
acter  of  the  original  Br'er  Rabbit  from  his 
descendants  in  the  old  plantation  forest. 

From  the  window  near  which  his  type- 
case  stood  he  saw  the  squirrels  scampering 
over  trees  and  roofs,  heard  the  birds  sing 
ing  in  the  branches,  caught  dissolving  views 
of  Br'er  Fox  flitting  across  the  garden 
path,  and  breathed  in  beauty  and  romance 
to  be  exhaled  later  for  the  enchantment  of 
a  world  of  readers. 

In  Colonel  Hunter's  library,  selected 
with  scholarly  taste,  he  found  the  great  old 
English  masters  who  had  the  good  fortune 
to  be  born  into  the  language  while  it  was 
yet  "a  well  of  English  undefiled."  In 

169 


"UNCLE  REMUS 


that  well  he  became  saturated  with  a  pure, 
direct,  simple  diction  which  later  contact 
with  the  tendencies  of  his  era  and  the 
ephemeral  production  of  the  daily  press 
was  not  able  to  change. 

It  was  in  the  office  of  the  Countryman 
that  Joel  Chandler  Harris  made  his  first 
venture  into  the  world  of  print,  shyly,  as 
became  one  who  would  afterward  be  known 
as  the  most  modest  literary  man  in  Amer 
ica.  When  Colonel  Hunter  found  out  the 
authorship  of  the  bright  paragraphs  that 
slipped  into  his  paper  now  and  then  with 
increasing  frequency,  he  captured  the 
elusive  young  genius  and  set  it  to  work  as 
a  regular  contributor.  In  this  periodical 
the  young  writer's  first  poem  appeared: 
a  mournful  lay  of  love  and  death,  as  a  first 
poem  usually  is,  however  cheerful  a  phi 
losopher  its  author  may  ultimately  become. 

163 


LITERARY    HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIK 

This  idyllic  life  soon  ceased.  When  the 
tide  of  war  rolled  over  central  Georgia,  it 
swept  many  lives  out  of  their  accustomed 
paths  and  destroyed  many  a  support 
around  which  budding  aspirations  had 
wound  their  tendrils.  The  "  printer's  boy  " 
sat  upon  a  fence  on  the  old  Turner  planta 
tion,  watching  Slocum's  Corps  march  by, 
and  amiably  receiving  the  good-natured 
gibes  and  jests  of  the  soldiers,  who  appar 
ently  found  something  irresistibly  mirth- 
provoking  in  the  quaint  little  figure  by  the 
wayside.  Sherman  was  marching  to  the 
sea,  and  the  Georgia  boy  was  taking  his 
first  view  of  the  progress  of  war. 

Among  the  many  enterprises  trampled 
to  earth  by  those  ruthless  feet  was  the 
Countryman,  which  survived  the  desolat 
ing  raid  but  a  short  time.  It  was  years 
before  the  young  journalist  knew  another 
home.  For  some  months  he  set  type  on  the 

164 


«  UNCLE  REMUS  " 


Macon  Daily  Telegraph,  going  from  there 
to  New  Orleans  as  private  secretary  of  the 
editor  of  the  Crescent  Monthly.  When 
the  Crescent  waned  and  disappeared  from 
the  journalistic  sky,  he  returned  to 
Georgia  and  became  editor,  compositor, 
pressman,  mailing  clerk,  and  entire  force 
on  the  Forsyth  Advertiser. 

A  pungent  editorial  upon  the  abuses  of 
the  State  government,  which  appeared  in 
the  Advertiser,  attracted  the  attention  of 
Colonel  W.  T.  Thompson  and  led  him  to 
offer  Mr.  Harris  a  place  on  the  staff  of  the 
Savannah  Daily  News.  Happily,  there 
lived  in  Savannah  the  charming  young  lady 
who  was  to  be  the  loving  centre  of  the 
pleasant  home  of  "  Uncle  Remus."  The 
marriage  took  place  in  1873,  and  Mr. 
Harris  remained  with  the  News  until  '76, 
when,  to  escape  yellow  fever,  he  removed  to 
Atlanta.  He  was  soon  after  placed  on  the 

165 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

editorial  staff  of  the  Constitution,  and  in 
its  columns  Uncle  Remus  was  first  intro 
duced  to  the  world. 

In  his  home  in  West  End,  "  Snap-Bean 
Farm,"  he  lived  in  calm  content  with  his 
harmonious  family  and  his  intimate  friends, 
Shakespeare  and  his  associates,  and  those 
yet  older  companions  who  have  come  down 
to  us  from  ancient  Biblical  times.  Some  of 
his  intimates  were  chosen  from  later  writ 
ers.  Among  poets,  he  told  me  that  Tom 
Moore  was  his  most  cherished  companion, 
the  one  to  whom  he  fled  for  consolation  in 
moments  of  life's  insufficiencies. 

Mr.  Harris  had  no  objection  to  talking 
in  sociable  manner  of  other  writers,  but  if 
his  visitor  did  not  wish  to  see  him  close  up 
like  a  clam  and  vanish  to  the  seclusion  of 
an  upper  room  it  was  better  not  to  men 
tion  Uncle  Remus.  Neither  had  he  any 

166 


"  UNCLE  REMUS  " 


fancy  for  the  kind  of  talk  that  prevails  at 
"  pink  teas  "  and  high  functions  of  society 
in  general.  Anything  that  would  be  ap 
propriate  to  the  topics  introduced  in  such 
places  would  never  occur  to  him,  and  the 
vapory  nothingness  was  so  filled  with  mys 
terious  terrors  for  him  that  he  fled  before 
them  in  unspeakable  alarm. 

"  Snap-Bean  Farm  "  was  all  the  world 
that  he  cared  for,  and  here  he  lived  and 
wove  his  enchantments,  not  in  his  well- 
appointed  study,  as  a  thoroughly  balanced 
mind  would  have  done,  but  all  over  the 
house,  just  where  he  happened  to  be,  pre 
ferably  beside  the  fire  after  the  little  ones 
had  gone  to  bed,  leaving  memories  of  their 
youthful  brightness  to  make  yet  more 
glowing  the  flames,  and  waves  of  their 
warmth  of  soul  to  linger  in  enchantment 
about  the  hearth. 

167 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

It  was  a  sunny,  happy  day  when  I  visited 
"  Snap-Bean  Farm."  A  violet-bordered 
walk  led  me  to  the  pretty  frame  cottage, 
built  upon  a  terrace  quite  a  distance  from 
the  street — a  shady,  wToodsy,  leafy,  flowery, 
fragrant  distance — a  distance  that  sug 
gested  infinite  beauty  and  melody,  infinite 
fascination.  When  the  home  was  estab 
lished  there,  the  rumbling  and  clang  of  the 
trolley  never  broke  the  stillness  of  the 
peaceful  spot.  A  horse-car  crept  slowly  and 
softly  to  a  near-by  terminus  and  stopped, 
as  if,  having  reached  Uncle  Remus 
and  his  woodsy  home,  there  could  be  noth 
ing  beyond  worth  the  effort.  There  were 
wide  reaches  of  pine-woods,  holding  illimit 
able  possibilities  of  romance,  of  legend,  of 
wildwood  and  wild-folk  tradition.  It  was 
a  country  home  in  the  beginning,  and  it  re 
mained  a  country  home,  regardless  of  the 
outstretching  of  the  city's  influences.  Joel 

168 


"UNCLE  REMUS" 


Chandler  Harris  had  a  country  soul,  and 
if  he  had  been  set  down  in  the  heart  of  a 
metropolis  his  home  would  have  stretched 
out  into  mystic  distances  of  greenery  and 
surrounded  itself  with  a  limitless  reach  of 
cool,  vibrant,  amber  atmosphere,  and 
looked  out  upon  a  colorful  and  fragrant 
wilderness  of  flowers,  and  he  would  have 
dwelt  in  the  solitudes  that  God  made. 

As  I  walked,  a  fragrance  wrapped  me 
around  as  with  a  veil  of  radiant  mist.  It 
came  straight  from  the  heart  of  his  many- 
varied  roses  that  claimed  much  of  his  time 
and  care.  The  shadow  of  two  great  cedar 
trees  reached  protecting  arms  after  me  as 
I  went  up  to  the  steps  of  the  cottage  hidden 
away  in  a  green  and  purple  and  golden  and 
pink  tangle  of  bloom  and  sweet  odors ;  ivy 
and  wistaria  and  jasmine  and  honeysuckle. 
Beside  the  steps  grew  some  of  his  special 
pet  roses.  Their  glowing  and  fragrant 

169 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

presence  sometimes  afforded  him  a  con 
genial  topic  of  discourse  when  a  guest 
chanced  to  approach  too  closely  the  subject 
of  the  literary  work  of  the  host,  if  one  may 
use  the  term  in  connection  with  a  writer 
who  so  constantly  disclaimed  any  approach 
to  literature,  and  so  persistently  declined 
to  take  himself  seriously. 

In  the  front  yard  was  a  swing  that 
appealed  to  me  reminiscently  with  the 
force  of  the  olden  days  when  I  had  a  swing 
of  my  very  own.  As  I  "  let  the  old  cat 
die,"  we  talked  of  James  Whitcomb 
Riley's  poem,  "  Waitin'  fer  the  Cat  to 
Die,"  and  Mr.  Harris  told  me  of  the  visit 
Riley  had  made  to  him  not  long  before. 
Two  men  with  such  cheerful  views  of  life 
could  not  but  be  congenial,  and  it  was 
apparent  that  the  visit  had  brought  joy  to 
them  both. 

I  did  not  see  the  three  dogs  and  seven 

170 


"  UNCLE  REMUS  " 


cats — mystic  numbers! — but  felt  confident 
that  my  genial  host  could  not  have  been 
satisfied  with  any  less. 

The  charmed  circle  in  which  Br'er  Fox 
and  Br'er  Rabbit  shone  as  social  stars  is 
yet  with  us,  and  we  shall  not  let  it  go  out 
from  our  lives.  The  mystic  childhood  of  a 
dim,  mysterious  race  is  brought  to  us 
through  these  beings  that  have  come  to  us 
from  the  olden  time  "  when  animals  talked 
like  people." 

"  The  Sign  of  the  Wren's  Nest  "  is  peo 
pled  by  these  legendary  forms  with  their 
never-dying  souls.  They  lurk  in  every 
corner  and  peer  out  from  every  crevice. 
They  hide  behind  the  trees,  and  sometimes 
in  the  moonlight  we  see  them  looking  out 
at  us  as  we  walk  along  the  path.  They 
crouch  among  interlacing  vines  and  look  at 
us  through  the  lacy  screen  with  eyes  in 
which  slumber  the  traditions  of  the  ages. 

171 


LITERARY   HEARTHSTONES   OF  DIXIE 

We  look  for  the  Magician  who,  with  a 
wave  of  the  hand,  made  all  these  to  live  and 
move  before  us.  We  know  he  must  be 
there.  We  "  cannot  make  him  dead  ";  but 
he  can  make  himself  and  us  alive  in  the  life 
of  the  past.  A  little  door,  with  one  shutter 
of  Memory  and  one  of  Faith,  opens  before 
us,  and  he  comes  to  dwell  again  in  the 
world  which  he  created  in  "  The  Sign  of 
the  Wren's  Nest." 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  FLAG" 

FRANCIS  SCOTT  KEY 


"THE  POET  OF  THE  FLAG" 

FRANCIS  SCOTT  KEY 

Away  back  in  the  years,  Terra  Rubra, 
the  colonial  home  of  John  Ross  Key, 
spread  out  broad  acres  under  the  sky  of 
Maryland,  in  the  northern  part  of  Freder 
ick  County.  Girt  by  noble  trees,  the  old 
mansion,  built  of  brick  that  came  from 
England  in  the  days  when  the  New  World 
yet  remained  in  ignorance  of  the  wealth 
of  her  natural  and  industrial  resources, 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  spacious  lawn 
which  afforded  a  beautiful  playground  for 
little  Francis  Scott  Key  and  his  young 
sister,  who  lived  here  the  ideal  home  life  of 
love  and  happiness.  Among  the  flowers 
of  the  terraced  garden  they  learned  the 
first  lessons  of  beauty  and  sweetness  and 
the  triumph  of  growth  and  blossoming. 

175 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

At  a  short  distance  was  a  dense  line  of  for 
est,  luring  the  young  feet  into  tangled  wil 
dernesses  of  greenery  and  the  colorful 
beauty  of  wild  flowers  in  summer, 
and  lifting  great  gray  arms  in  solemn 
majesty  against  the  dun  skies  of  winter. 
Through  it  flowed  the  rippling  silver  of 
Pipe  Creek  on  its  sparkling  way  to  the  sea. 
At  the  foot  of  a  grassy  slope  a  spring 
offered  draughts  of  the  clear  pure  water 
which  is  said  to  be  the  only  drink  for  one 
who  would  write  epics  or  live  an  epic.  Be 
yond  a  wide  expanse  of  wind-blown  grass 
the  young  eyes  saw  the  variant  gray  and 
purple  tints  of  the  Catoctin  Mountains, 
showing  mystic  changes  in  the  floodtide  of 
day  or  losing  themselves  in  the  crimson  and 
gold  sea  of  sunset. 

In    this    stately,    old,    many-verandaed 
home,  looking  across  nearly  three  thousand 

176 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  FLAG  " 

acres  of  fertile  land  as  if  with  a  proud 
sense  of  lordship,  the  wide-browed,  poet- 
faced  boy  with  the  beautiful  dreamy  eyes 
and  the  line  of  genius  between  his  deli 
cately  arched  brows  passed  the  golden 
years  of  his  childhood. 

It  is  said  that  President  Washington 
once  went  to  Terra  Rubra  to  visit  his  old 
friend,  General  John  Ross  Key,  of  Revo 
lutionary  fame.  It  may  be  that  the  vener 
ated  hand  of  the  "  Father  of  His  Coun 
try  " — the  hand  that  had  so  resolutely  put 
away  all  selfish  ambitions  and  had  reached 
out  only  for  good  things  to  bestow  upon 
his  people  and  his  nation — was  laid  in 
blessing  upon  the  bright  young  head  of 
little  Francis  Scott  Key,  helping  to  plant 
in  the  youthful  heart  the  seed  that  after 
ward  blossomed  into  the  thought  which  he 
expressed  many  years  later: 

177 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

I  have  said  that  patriotism  is  the  preserving 
virtue  of  Republics.  Let  this  virtue  wither  and 
selfish  ambition  assume  its  place  as  the  motive  for 
action,  and  the  Republic  is  lost. 

Here,  my  countrymen,  is  the  sole  ground  of 
danger. 

Seven  miles  from  Annapolis,  where  the 
Severn  River  flows  into  Round  Bay,  stands 
Belvoir,  a  spacious  manor-house  with  six- 
teen-inch  walls,  in  which  are  great  windows 
reaching  down  to  the  polished  oak  floor. 
In  this  home  of  Francis  Key,  his  grand 
father,  the  young  Francis  Scott  Key  spent 
a  part  of  the  time  of  his  tutelage,  prepar 
ing  for  entrance  into  St.  John's  College, 
the  stately  buildings  of  which  were  erected 
by  a  certain  early  Key,  who  had  come  to 
our  shore  to  help  unlock  the  gates  of  lib 
erty  for  the  world. 

The  old  college,  with  its  historic  campus, 
fits  well  into  the  atmosphere  of  Annapolis, 

178 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  FLAG  " 

standing  proudly  in  her  eighteenth-century 
dignity,  watching  the  rest  of  the  world 
scramble  in  a  helter-skelter  rush  for  mod 
ern  trivialities.  Its  old  walls  are  in  pleas 
ing  harmony  with  the  colonial  mansions 
poised  on  little  hillocks,  from  which  they 
look  down  on  you  with  benevolent  conde 
scension  and  invite  you  to  climb  the  long 
flights  of  steps  that  lead  to  their  very 
hearts,  grand  but  hospitable,  which  you  do 
in  a  glow  of  high-pitched  ambition,  as  if 
you  were  scaling  an  arduous  but  fascinat 
ing  intellectual  height.  Having  reached 
the  summit,  you  stop  an  instant  on  the 
landing,  partly  for  breathing  purposes,  but 
more  especially  to  exult  a  moment  on  the 
height  of  triumph. 

The  four-storied  college  at  the  end  of 
Prince  George  Street — regal  Annapolis 
would  not  be  content  with  a  street  of  less 
than  royal  dignity — looks  down  with 

179 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

pleased  approval  on  its  wide  expanse  of 
green  campus,  for  that  stretch  of  ground 
has  a  history  that  makes  it  worthy  of  the 
noble  building  which  it  supports.  It 
spread  its  greenery  to  the  view  of  those 
window-eyes  decades  before  the  Revolu 
tion,  and  when  that  fiery  torch  flamed  upon 
the  country's  record  the  college  green  fur 
nished  a  camping  place  for  the  freedom- 
loving  Frenchmen  who  came  over  the  sea 
to  help  set  our  stars  permanently  into  the 
blue  of  our  national  sky.  In  1812  Amer 
ican  troops  pitched  their  tents  on  the  fa 
mous  campus,  and  under  the  waving  green 
of  its  summer  grasses  and  the  white  canopy 
of  its  winter  snows  men  who  died  for  their 
country's  honor  lie  in  their  long  sleep. 

On  the  grounds  east  of  the  college  build 
ings  stands  the  Tulip  Tree  which  sheltered 
the  first  settlers  of  Annapolis  in  1649,  and 
may  have  hidden  away  in  the  memory-cells 

180 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  FLAG  " 

of  its  stanch  old  heart  reminiscences  of  a 
time  when  a  bluff  old  Latin  sailor,  with 
more  ambition  in  his  soul  than  geography 
in  his  head,  unwittingly  blundered  onto  a 
New  World.  Whatever  may  be  its  recol 
lections,  it  has  sturdily  weathered  the 
storms  of  centuries,  surviving  the  tempests 
hurled  against  it  by  Nature  and  the  poetry 
launched  upon  it  by  Man.  It  has  been 
known  by  the  name  of  the  "  Treaty  Tree," 
from  a  tradition  that  in  the  shade  of  its 
branches  the  treaty  with  the  Susquehan- 
noghs  was  signed  in  1652.  In  1825  Gen 
eral  La  Fayette  was  entertained  under  its 
spreading  boughs,  and  it  has  since  ex 
tended  hospitable  arms  over  many  a 
patriotic  celebration. 

In  "  the  antiente  citie  "  Francis  Scott 
Key  found  many  things  which  appealed  to 
his  patriotic  soul.  On  the  State  House 
hill  was  the  old  cannon  brought  to  Mary- 

181 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

land  by  Lord  Baltimore's  colony  and  res 
cued  from  a  protracted  bath  in  St.  Mary's 
River  to  take  its  place  among  the  many 
relics  of  history  which  make  Annapolis  the 
repository  of  old  stories  tinged  by  time  and 
fancy  with  a  mystic  coloring  of  supersti 
tion.  He  lived  in  the  old  "  Carvel  House," 
erected  by  Dr.  Upton  Scott  on  Shipwright 
Street.  Xot  far  away  was  the  "  Peggy 
Stewart  "  dwelling,  overlooking  the  harbor 
where  the  owner  of  the  unfortunate  Peggy 
Stewart,  named  for  the  mistress  of  the 
mansion,  was  forced  by  the  revolutionary 
citizens  of  Annapolis,  perhaps  incited  by 
an  over-zealous  enthusiasm  but  with  good 
intentions,  to  burn  his  ship  in  penalty  for 
having  paid  the  tax  on  its  cargo  of  tea. 

If  Francis  Key  had  a  taste  for  the  super 
natural,  there  was  ample  opportunity  for 
its  gratification  in  this  haven  of  tradition. 
He  may  have  seen  the  headless  man  who 

189 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  FLAG  " 

was  accustomed  to  walk  down  Green 
Street  to  Market  Space,  with  what  inten 
tion  was  never  divulged.  Every  old  house 
had  its  ghost,  handed  down  through  the 
generations,  as  necessary  a  piece  of  furni 
ture  as  the  tester-bed  or  the  sideboard. 
Perhaps  not  all  of  these  mysterious  vis 
itants  were  as  quiet  as  the  shadowy  lady  of 
the  Brice  house,  who  would  glide  softly 
in  at  the  hour  of  gloaming  and,  with  her 
head  on  her  hand,  lean  against  the  mantel, 
look  sadly  into  the  faces  of  the  occupants 
of  the  room,  and  vanish  without  a  sound — 
of  course,  it  is  undeniable  that  Annapolis 
would  have  only  well-bred  ghosts. 

After  graduation  from  St.  John's,  in 
that  famous  class  known  as  the  "  Tenth 
Legion  "  because  of  its  brilliancy,  Francis 
Scott  Key  studied  law  in  the  office  of  his 
uncle,  Philip  Barton  Key,  in  Annapolis, 
where  his  special  chum  was  Roger  Brooke 

18S 


LITERARY  HEARTHSTONES  OF  DIXIE 

Taney,  who  persuaded  him  to  begin  the 
practice  of  his  profession  in  Frederick  City. 
In  1801  the  youthful  advocate  opened  his 
law  office  in  the  town  from  which  the  Rev 
olutionary  Key  had  marched  away  to  Bos 
ton  to  join  Colonel  Washington's  troops. 
Francis  Key  invited  his  friend  to  visit 
Terra  Rubra  with  him,  and  Mr.  Taney 
found  the  old  plantation  home  so  fascinat 
ing  that  many  visits  followed.  Soon  there 
was  a  wedding  at  beautiful  Terra  Rubra, 
when  pretty,  graceful  Ann  Key  became  the 
wife  of  the  future  Chief  Justice  of  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court. 

In  1802,  at  Annapolis,  in  the  mahogany 
wainscoted  drawing-room  of  the  old  Lloyd 
house,  built  in  1772,  Key  was  married  to 
Mary  Tayloe  Lloyd. 

After  a  few  years  of  practice  in  Fred 
erick  City,  Francis  Scott  Key  removed  to 
Georgetown,  now  West  Washington. 

184 


"  THE  POET  OF  THE  FLAG  " 

Here  at  the  foot  of  what  is  known  as  M 
Street,  but  was  Bridge  Street  in  the  good 
old  days  before  Georgetown  had  given  up 
her  picturesque  street  names  for  the  in 
significant  numbers  and  letters  of  Wash 
ington,  half  a  block  from  the  old  Aqueduct 
Bridge,  stands  a  two-storied,  gable-roofed, 
dormer-windowed  house,  bearing  in  black 
letters  the  inscription,  "  The  Key  Man 
sion."  Below  is  the  announcement  that  it 
is  open  to  the  public  from  9  A.M.  to  5  P.M. 
daily,  excepting  Sunday.  On  a  placard 
between  two  front  doors  are  printed  the 
words,  "  Home  of  Francis  Scott  Key, 
author  of  The  Star- Spangled  Banner," 
the  patriotic  color-scheme  being  shown  in 
the  white  placard  and  blue  and  red 
lettering. 

For  more  than  a  century  the  house  has 
stood  there,  and  the  circling  years  have 
sent  it  into  remote  antiquity  of  appearance, 

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